The Scent of Blood and Paint
by TheLandlord'sDaughter
Summary: Caroline finds herself tangled up in the charm and danger of New Orleans after she agrees to spend one day in the city with Klaus. Takes place summer after 4th season finale.
1. Sunrise

**A/N: One quick thing before we start: I've pretty much decided to ignore the whole Hayley baby thing, because, you know, who wants to worry about that? **

**Thanks! Please leave a review if ya feel like it. **

Caroline hated New Orleans.

She hated the sticky, sweltering heat. She hated the feeling of being in an overcrowded nightclub even when you were just walking down the street. She hated the music spilling out of every doorway, mixing until it became an unrecognizable mess of noise. But mostly, she hated the reason why she was here and who she had come to see.

She walked quickly down the uneven streets, trying to avoid the ever-present pushy street vendors while simultaneously pulling down the long sleeves of her jacket (totally impractical in this heat) to hide a jagged bite mark from view. Prickling, hot pain spread from her wrist up to her shoulder. She could practically feel it radiating, getting closer to her heart with every step she took.

She was beginning to lose count of how many times she wished there was some other antidote to this.

It was three in the morning now—this had been the soonest flight—but Caroline knew he'd be awake somewhere. That was one nice thing to count on about vampires—and hybrids. They didn't have to sleep.

The mention of the name "Klaus" provoked widely different reactions from the people—vampires—she met on the street. Some raised their eyebrows, as if they didn't think Caroline seemed worthy to see him in person. Some lowered their gaze and replied tersely that they didn't know where he was—adding, under their breath, that they wished he were somewhere outside the city limits. Or better yet, in hell. Finally, Caroline came across a girl—a new vampire, from the looks of it—who told her Klaus could be found in a particular apartment in the French Quarter.

Of course that was where he'd be. Oldest neighborhood for the oldest vampires. The Originals always seemed to crave a kind of old-world glamour that could not be found in anywhere spacious or light or new. _You know_, thought Caroline, _NICE_ _places_.

By the time she was knocking on the door of the apartment, the pain had spread to her neck, hot and stinging so much that it almost made her eyes water. He'd better be here.

After four or five knocks, somebody answered. It wasn't Klaus. Caroline hadn't been expecting anyone else, with Rebekah in Europe and Elijah in Mystic Falls dealing with Katherine. It was a girl she'd never seen before; pale, with wide, dark eyes. Another new vampire.

"Who is it, then?" called a voice from within. Now _that_ Caroline recognized.

Caroline told the girl what her name was, and the girl called back, "She says Caroline. You know her?"

He was at the door in a flash. Before Caroline even had a change to say anything, Klaus was looking in to the other girl's eyes, and telling her, "Thank you, Natalie. Why don't you go hunt?"Compulsion, Caroline thought to herself. Which instantly made her worry if it had been too long since she had taken vervain. Well, it was too late now.

"Okay," said the girl, and she headed downstairs without another thought.

He watched the girl leave, and only when he heard the door shut behind her did he focus on Caroline. "Caroline Forbes," he said, grinning. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She walked past him in to the apartment, trying not to get too close as she did. He smelled like blood and paint. Two scents that would have repelled the human Caroline. "Don't get excited, Klaus. This is business, not pleasure."

His smile faded, just a little. "Fine. To what do I owe the business?"

Caroline took in the apartment. Olive green walls. Chandeliers. Divans covered with silky red cloth. Wine glasses strewn about—some containing wine, some containing blood. And in the center of the room was a painting that could only have been Klaus's. It was violent and chaotic, with a melancholy blue laced throughout it.

By way of an answer to his question, Caroline turned back around and took off her jacket, throwing it over the divan. She was wearing a white camisole which revealed the small but potent bite on her inner arm. It still prickled painfully.

"Werewolf bite," said Klaus grimly. "Love, have you ever considered hiring a trainer for those things? This is just getting ridiculous."

Deciding not to mention what she was thinking, that most if not all of her previous werewolf incidents had been Klaus' fault in the first place, Caroline said, in a deadpan, "Well, isn't it lucky I've got you. Now, will you help me?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he headed over to a side table stocked with various bottles and poured two glasses of deep red wine. "So how did it happen?" he asked. "You and your high school sweetheart getting a little too adventurous in the bedroom?"

"No," she said, feeling herself starting to blush. "I mean, it was just the wrong place, wrong time."

"But it was Tyler?"

She didn't want to agree with him. But he was right. "It was an accident."

He offered her one of the glasses. "I'm sure it was," he said.

She took the glass, more because she felt like she needed a drink right now than because it was polite.

Klaus took a sip from his own glass, then said, "I'm sure he's absolutely wracked with guilt."

Caroline paused. "Yes."

He gave her an appraising sort of glance. "That doesn't sound very convincing. Don't tell me after I went to all the trouble to bring precious Tyler back for you that now you've gone and—"

"He doesn't know, okay?" She hated that Klaus could tell when she was lying. "I didn't want him to worry. Things have been kind of…weird lately, and I didn't want to make him feel guilty. I got some help to make him forget and send him away from Mystic Falls for a while. We're not together anymore."

She could tell Klaus was trying very hard not to look like Christmas had come early. "I'm very sorry to hear it," he said.

"Oh, no you're not," said Caroline scathingly. "Don't pretend like this isn't great news for you. Tyler's gone and I need your help…I'm sure you've had lots of weird little fantasies that start just this way." She slumped down on the divan, wine glass still in hand. It helped numb the pain in her arm a little.

"Ah, Caroline, you know me so well," said Klaus. He joined her on the divan and draped his arm over the back. She hadn't meant him to. It was a little too small, which made him a little too close for comfort. "And I suspect you know me so well to think that I'll help you no matter how many horrible things you say to me, because of—"

"Your creepy obsession with me?" Caroline finished.

"I'd prefer to think of it as a 'relentless pursuit of a lofty goal', but let's not quibble. Yes. But you see, I think I'm tired of being so predictable."

She felt a small rush of fear, but then it was gone again. Of course he would save her. He was just stalling, playing. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean, I've helped you several times now and I never seem to get anything in return. I think it's time I got something in return."

"Oh?" she said. She tried to keep her tone neutral. But she added, defiantly, "Haven't we just been over your creepy obsession? You wouldn't let me die."

Klaus put his glass down on the table beside them, his eyes intent. "You're absolutely right, love, I wouldn't."

For one stupid second, Caroline thought that would be the end of it. But then he continued, "But there are a lot of people I would let die. Actually, no, that's the wrong choice of words. I wouldn't let them die. I would kill them."

Caroline took another sip of wine, trying to appear nonchalant. "What are you talking about?"

"There are so many innocents on these streets tonight, Caroline," he said softly, "and I wouldn't feel a twinge of guilt if I ripped every single one of their throats out."

The words sent a shiver down her spine, but she still doubted his sincerity. Klaus would kill, but not randomly, not when he was trying to make a new home here. Right? Still, she played along, seeing where this was going. The sooner she got to the end of this stupid game, the sooner she'd be cured. "Unless…" she said.

"Unless you do something for me."

Her eyes narrowed. "You know, Klaus, if this is another attempt to get me to like you, it's just…sad and pathetic. Even for you." She started to get up, but Klaus caught her by the wrist before she could.

"Don't you even want to hear the rest of the deal?"

"No, not really." She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and was about to storm out—momentarily forgetting, in her disgust, about the cure she needed.

"Because I think you'd find it preferable to a murderous rampage…"

She turned back around again. "No. You know what? This is stupid. I'm calling your bluff. You wouldn't just go out and kill a bunch of people just because I don't agree to do…whatever it is."

"Would you like to know what it is?"

The pain was getting closer and closer to her heart, her head starting to feel warm and foggy. She didn't have time for this. "Ugh, fine, tell me."

"Hmmm. I hadn't really decided yet."

"Klaus!" she whined. She knew what was coming next—the hallucinations, the bloodlust, the delirium. She couldn't tell if she could feel it coming or if it was just her imagination, but either way, this was no time to joke around.

"Well, I'm sorry, love, I am making this up on the spot. I wasn't expecting you, but I can't just let an opportunity like this one slip away." He thought about it for what felt to Caroline like an entirely unnecessary amount of time. Finally he said, "All right. I've thought of it. You spend one day with me here, in New Orleans. If you do, I will be a perfect gentleman and not go on a tourist killing spree."

This caught Caroline by surprise. She had expected a deal from Klaus to be a little more _Indecent Proposal_. Not that the part about killing innocent people wasn't indecent. "Just…spend one day with you? That's it?"

He got up and stood beside her again. "That's it."

"There isn't any, like, euphemistic meaning I'm missing here? You did say spend the day, not spend the night?"

He shook his head, the beginnings of a smile on his face. "No double meanings. Unless that's what you were hoping for."

"And nobody will get hurt?" Caroline asked.

"Not by me."

"And if I agree you'll stop stalling and help me?"

"Thought you'd never ask," said Klaus.

Caroline weighed her options. She was stuck here until the next flight she could find back to Mystic Falls anyway. Klaus might be lying about the killing spree, but she wasn't prepared to take that chance. And it was just one day. She could get through it.

"Fine. Deal."

Klaus grinned in smug way that Caroline was, unfortunately, already very familiar with.

"You're such a freak," she said, but his grin didn't falter.

"Deal, then," said Klaus. "Shall we seal it in blood?" He rolled up his sleeve and, with a flash of fangs and yellow eyes, tore a gash in his forearm.

Finally. Caroline didn't think twice before pressing her lips to the wound and starting to drink. If she'd had another option for a cure, maybe she would have hesitated. Sharing blood with Klaus was always an unsettling experience. Blood was life. It carried memories and heartbeats. When she took blood from Klaus, it was like seeing inside him, just for a moment. Nothing specific—just a blurry snapshot. Colors and shapes and vague feelings, mostly. But Caroline didn't like it. Or, more accurately, she didn't like that she didn't dislike it more.

Klaus never seemed to mind it, either. When she came out of the trance she had been in, his fingers were in her hair, gently pressing her head to his arm. She let go and stepped away once she noticed it.

When she looked down, she saw the bite on her forearm was already starting to heal. Caroline hadn't noticed her thoughts becoming so dull and disorganized before, but now they seemed clearer and sharper. She'd been closer to delirium than she'd thought.

"Thank you," said Caroline, a little awkwardly.

Klaus glanced over at a clock over by the wall. It was nearly six in the morning. It was so dark in his apartment that Caroline hadn't noticed the sun beginning to rise.

"Excellent timing," he said. "Our day starts now."


	2. Daylight

**A/N: First off, thank you all for the follows/favorites/awesome reviews! They make my inbox a happy place. A couple notes about this chapter: **

**One, Arnaud's is a real thing. If you're bored, put "arnaud's restaurant new orleans" in to Google images. It's really pretty. **

**Two, I think I'd better tell you now that this story isn't gonna be super long. I planned it to be about four or five chapters, since everything happens over the course of one day. Just warning you now so you don't hate me later. **

If Caroline had thought that her day with Klaus would consist of staying in while he stared at her—which in her mind, had been a definite possibility—she was sorely mistaken. Klaus seemed to have an entire day planned out for them, though he would never tell her what the next part of his plan would be.

He insisted on starting the day at Arnaud's, a little restaurant which on weekends, he said, featured a three-piece jazz band to play during breakfast. As soon as Caroline stepped inside, she knew why Klaus had picked it. The whole place felt like stepping in to a different era, one with warm light and polished mirrors and wrought iron climbing over the building like ivy. The bright, bold sounds of a trumpet and bass filled the room.

"Very fancy," she said, in a more cynical tone than she really felt. She didn't want to give Klaus the satisfaction.

He either didn't sense her tone or decided deliberately to ignore it. "Lovely, isn't it?" he said.

The truth was, Caroline had never been somewhere this elegant, especially not for breakfast, which, when she was human, usually consisted of a power bar at best.

The tables were covered with cream-colored linen and accented with fresh cut yellow flowers, still heavy with morning mist. The waiter who sat them down was wearing a coat and tails and referred to them as "sir" and "miss". The only other time Caroline was called "miss" was when she got cards from her grandparents addressed to "Miss Caroline Forbes." And, of course, Miss Mystic Falls.

"What will you be having?" Klaus asked after they had perused the (elegant, expensive) menus for a while.

"Scrambled eggs," said Caroline flatly. It was the cheapest item she could think of. She felt strange letting Klaus buy her expensive things—not that it had ever stopped him before. Besides, she could hardly pronounce most things on the menu.

"You can't be serious," said Klaus.

"What?" she asked.

"You're in New Orleans, love," he said.

"So?"

"So…" he shook his head. "Caroline, you are a beautiful, bright, intelligent girl, but you've been stuck in that stagnant little town for so long. Now that you're out, you might want to consider trying something new."

"Geez, it's just breakfast, no need to analyze it," she said, her brow furrowed.

"Why do you think I suggested that you spend the day here with me?"

She set her menu down with a slap that turned a few heads, despite the loud music.

"I'm sorry, _suggested_?"

"Fine, blackmailed. Do you know why I did that?"

"We've already been over this, Klaus. Because you're a psychopath with a weird thing for me."

"No," he said, suddenly stern. "It's because you've never been out of Mystic Falls and if I hadn't forced you to stay, you would have been back there again the second after I cured you. Am I wrong?"

Her silence let him know that he wasn't wrong.

"And it's terrible for me to see you stuck there when you should be out, having new experiences, seeing the world. Believe me, Caroline, the world would be the poorer for your absence."

She didn't really know what to say to that. Thankfully, she was spared having to think of something by the arrival of the waiter. "What will you be having this morning?" he asked.

Klaus cut in before Caroline had time to reply. "She will be having the Oysters en Brochette." He smirked at her as he handed the waiter the menus. "And I'll have the same."

"Very good, sir."

Caroline wrinkled her nose as the waiter walked away. "Oysters?" she said.

"Trust me," said Klaus.

She gazed over at the three-piece band and lost her train of thought in the music. "Haven't had any reason to so far," she said mildly.

Klaus only gave her a cryptic look, and turned his chair around to watch the band, too.

When the food came, Caroline poked at it suspiciously with her fork before she finally took a bite.

"Good?" Klaus asked.

Caroline closed her eyes, and covered her mouth with her hand before saying, "No."

"You're lying."

Damn it. She opened her eyes again. "I'm totally lying. This is amazing."

He laughed. She started to laugh, too, in spite of herself.

XXX

Next on Klaus's itinerary was a walk down Royal Street. This looked like the New Orleans that Caroline had seen before only in movies and pictures, complete with iron lace balconies and hanging flowers. It felt like walking in to a world which she'd thought before was only make-believe.

Klaus, as she had expected, seemed to know everything about everything, and he would stop as they walked along to tell her about the copper gas lamps or the shop with the most elaborate jewelry or a part of the street where some famous writer had walked once upon a time. Caroline found herself enjoying strolling lazily along in the midday heat, listening to him speak enthusiastically about this and that. She kept having to remind herself that this was _Klaus_, _Klaus_ the murderer, the psychopath, the one who had an unsettling obsession with her, who had forced her to come along on the promise that he would kill innocent people if she didn't. But it was hard to remember when she saw him like this—so engaged, so patiently explaining little pieces of history or art, so gently placing a hand on her lower back to lead them along. It was hard to remember.

So much so that she kept waiting for the catch.

Every few blocks, she would ask, "So, what's next? Just tell me."

And he would smirk in an infuriating way and tell her, "You look especially lovely today, Caroline."

He took her inside art galleries along the street as the heat started to build up outside. Klaus didn't have much patience for the more modern, experimental types of art, some of them flown in from New York or Prague.

"It's so...inelegant, isn't it?" he said, looking at one particular black and white abstract sculpture. "Ungainly."

"I like it," said Caroline, just to annoy him.

Klaus was drawn to portraits, still lifes. He liked to amuse himself by making up stories to go with the pictures.

"Oh, this one. Yes," he said. He was indicating an impressionist painting of three aristocratic men in top hats at a fancy dinner party. "This man to the side here, staring off in to space? He's considering letting the other gentleman know of his affections for him. He looks totally oblivious, doesn't he? And this third one, who looks like he's sleeping? He's not. He's trying to listen in on their conversation, but the damn potted plant keeps getting in the way…"

Caroline started laughing as he went on from painting to painting, inventing more unlikely scenarios with each one.

"This man with the pipe just realized he left the oven on…"

"No, no," she said. "He just understood a joke someone told him a week ago."

"Maybe he's trying to figure out what 'This statement is a lie' means."

"Maybe it's not tobacco he's smoking…" They were both laughing now, so much so that other people browsing the gallery turned their heads.

"Be honest," said Klaus, grinning. "You are enjoying yourself."

"I'm just humoring you," she said, with a laugh that she wasn't totally able to turn in to a derisive scoff.

"Oh, well then you're an excellent actress," he said with a sly grin.

Caroline wanted to move on from this topic. She turned around, gazing at the opposite wall full of painted faces. "What's her story?" She pointed to a portrait of a girl in profile, her hair up in a nineteenth century style, her dress a deep dark red with gold trim. Her face held a kind of knowing smile.

The painting seemed to surprise him. "You might not believe this," he said, "but I knew her."

"Really?"

"Yes. Sad story," he said. "She was a sweet, pretty thing—as a human. But she was turned in to a vampire. The usual boring reason, some vampire falls in love with a human, 'I want to be with you forever', 'love eternal', you know. Anyway, it turned out the girl had some repressed emotions, about her family, that she couldn't contain when she became a vampire. So one night she came home and decapitated them all. And then when she realized what she'd done, she blamed her vampire love and ripped out his heart. Poetic, I suppose."

Klaus turned his eyes back over to Caroline and watched her stunned expression closely.

"Oh my god," said Caroline. "That's terrible."

"Oh, that wasn't really the sad part of it. The sad part was when the girl was staked by a hunter in the twenties. A pity. She made such an interesting vampire," said Klaus. "You would have liked her."

Klaus stepped back to admire the painting while Caroline, wide-eyed, breathed, "Jesus…" and turned her back to him.

XXX

Their next stop was the French Market. Klaus let Caroline explore on her own for a while, which she was grateful for. She needed some time to breathe. Being with Klaus for too long sort of felt like being underwater.

She walked aimlessly around, letting her glance slide from souvenir stand to restaurant to storefront. It occurred to her that maybe she could leave now, now that Klaus wasn't watching. She'd promised him the day, but it would be easy to slip away in this crowd and head for the airport. She didn't think Klaus would really go through with the whole killing spree idea, not if she were already gone…

Still, she didn't. She told herself that Klaus would have prepared for that somehow, though she didn't know for sure.

While she was considering all this, staring in to space in the direction of a tomato cart, her phone started to buzz from inside her purse.

The caller ID read: Elena. Caroline picked up before it could buzz again.

She sounded frantic and far away on the other end of the line. "Care? Caroline?"

"I'm here," she said. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" she repeated, in disbelief. "You were supposed to be back hours ago. What happened? Did you get Klaus to cure you?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Caroline said, wondering if that were true. "No more werewolf bite. I just, um…got detained."

"Detained?"

"Yeah," she said. She didn't really want to explain the whole thing. "I uh, I couldn't get a flight until tomorrow." (It was sort of true). "I'm sorry you were so worried. I totally forgot."

Elena seemed to have calmed down. "It's okay. Just glad you're safe."

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said again.

"So Klaus isn't…up to any particular evil?"

"No more than usual," said Caroline.

"Good," said Elena. "That's good. Just…don't stay too much longer, okay?"

"Oh, trust me," Caroline said, with a laugh that sounded overly loud in her ears. "First chance I get I'm out of here."

"Really? I thought I just gave you a chance."

Caroline jumped at the voice behind her. She knew it was Klaus before she turned around, but she still stared daggers at him while she said, "I gotta go, Elena. See you soon." She hung up.

"You know," she said, "that appearing suddenly out of nowhere thing was a lot scarier when I was human. Now that I'm a vampire, it's just annoying."

"I couldn't resist," he said.

"And what did you mean, you gave me a chance?" she asked.

"Nothing, nothing," he said, but he seemed pleased. He gestured down towards the rest of the market. "Shall we?"

She followed, letting out an aggravated sigh.

They strolled past shops with sequined masks glinting in the afternoon sun, flea market tents decorated with colored scarves, and open door restaurants hawking samples of crawfish, beignets—even alligator, which Caroline couldn't bring herself to try.

As the sky overhead turned the color of wildfire, Klaus and Caroline settled themselves in a little wine bar, watching tourists walk past, snapping pictures of food and souvenirs. They were silent for a long while, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. For Caroline, at least, it was a relief, though she never completely let down her guard. Klaus let his gaze wander over to her from time to time, and she always looked the other way when he did. She took small sips of white wine, watching the sun dip lower on the horizon.

As she watched, a band began setting up in the square in front of them. Two guitars, a bass, and a violin. Open guitar case in front of them, they began playing an up-tempo jazz tune that was somehow also intricate and hypnotic. Some people stopped and stood to watch them play, but most passed by without a second glance. The song lasted a long time, melody floating over melody, as they transitioned from one song to the next.

After a while they changed to a slower tune, one that reminded Caroline of twisting smoke and the dusky sky outside—purple streaked with gold.

"Pretty," said Caroline.

"Yes, it is," Klaus agreed. With a sideways glance at Caroline, he stood up and stretched out his hand to her. "Would you care to dance?"

Caroline looked around the square full of people walking by, shopping, standing. "Nobody else is," she said.

"Do you only ever do what everybody else does?" he asked, with a flicker of a smile.

She paused, let out a small sigh that was like a shrug. And she took his hand.

Klaus led her out to the center of the square in to a small clearing in front of the four musicians. If the musicians were surprised to see people approaching them, they didn't show it. With one hand he held tight to Caroline's, while the other slid around her waist, and with both he drew her to him. They turned slowly amid the milling tourists, making it seem like everybody else was on a fast-forward film reel.

It had been a long time since she'd danced this close with anybody. At least, anybody who wasn't Tyler. She rested her chin in the space between his head and shoulder. The soft stubble on his cheek brushed her face. She felt his warm breath on her neck. Caroline tried to concentrate on only the music, until Klaus finally spoke.

"Do you remember," he asked,"when we danced at my mother's ball?"

"I remember," she said.

He spoke softly enough that only she could hear. "It's felt like a long time since then, still, I find myself thinking of that night…"

Caroline racked her brain for some kind of clever retort. But it just wouldn't come. It must have been the sultry heat, must be making her brain feel slow and languid.

"Such an old-fashioned dance, though, wasn't it?" he said.

"Well, you would know…" she said (lamely).

"I remember vividly," he said, "wanting to be this close to you then." His hand drifted downward, feeling the curve of her hips, all the pressure in the tips of his fingers.

"Klaus," she said, with the beginnings of a nervous laugh. She'd meant it as a reprimand, but she couldn't quite say it that way.

"Caroline…" he murmured in her ear. "Always so prim. But it's funny, you never _really _say no to me, do you?" With a finger, he lightly traced the length of her spine, sending a shiver through her. "Tell me to stop right now, and I will. Just tell me to stop…"

"I…" she said. She couldn't seem to say anything.

He pressed his lips lightly to her neck, so lightly it was like a suggestion of a kiss.

Maybe it was that she didn't want to say anything…

She brought her head back to look him in the eyes.

"Klaus—"

But they were suddenly ripped apart.

They had been lost in their own world. They hadn't noticed the sun going down, the milling shoppers quietly disappearing down alleyways and street corners, hadn't noticed the music stopping the minute before they were hit.

Caroline was slammed to the ground with a force that left her gasping for air. She couldn't see, except for shimmering spots of light that flickered across her vision. She heard shouting, the sounds of approaching footsteps, running, struggling. She still couldn't get up.

When her sight came swimming back, she found the bass player from the band pinning her down, fangs out, eyes red. She turned her head to see Klaus being held back—and not easily—by four vampires. There were more coming. They were being surrounded.

Caroline tried to jerk her arms free of the heavy vampire on top of her, but he pulled a stake from his pocket and held it just above her. If she took even a breath, she could feel the sharp point digging in to her chest.

Klaus called out her name as he tried to break free from the group holding him back, yellow eyes flashing. "What is this?" he snarled.

"A message from Marcel," said a voice in the crowd. The rest of them laughed and shouted in response.

"Yeah," said another one. "He says to—"

"Hey, hey now. I can speak for myself."


	3. Dusk

**A/N: Thanks again for the reviews and stuff, guys! A note before we start, this chapter is pretty action-heavy. If that's not your thing I apologize, and I promise it'll pay off later. **

**But first! A little recap…**

_Caroline was slammed to the ground with a force that left her gasping for air. She couldn't see, except for shimmering spots of light that flickered across her vision. She heard shouting, the sounds of approaching footsteps, running, struggling. She still couldn't get up. _

_When her sight came swimming back, she found the bass player from the band pinning her down, fangs out, eyes red. She turned her head to see Klaus being held back—and not easily—by four vampires. There were more coming. They were being surrounded. _

_Caroline tried to jerk her arms free of the heavy vampire on top of her, but he pulled a stake from his pocket and held it just above her. If she took even a breath, she could feel the sharp point digging in to her chest. _

_Klaus called out her name as he tried to break free from the group holding him back, yellow eyes flashing. "What is this?" he snarled. _

"_A message from Marcel," said a voice in the crowd. The rest of them laughed and shouted in response. _

"_Yeah," said another one. "He says to—"_

"_Hey, hey now. I can speak for myself." _

From out of the crowd came a vampire with deep, dark eyes and a pleasant smile on his face. "That's the fun part, right?"

"Marcel," said Klaus in grudging recognition. He stopped struggling.

"Hey, buddy," said Marcel. "How are things?"

"What do you think you're doing?"

Marcel didn't answer. Instead, he strode over to where Caroline lay, paralyzed, before the end of a stake. He turned his head to look at her. "Is this your girl? She's pretty." He looked back at Klaus. "So _fragile_, though. You know?"

Klaus's eyes, back to their usual blue, held real fear. Caroline could count on one hand how many times she had seen that look.

"She's got nothing to do with you," he said.

"Oh, I know. But she's got something to do with _you_, doesn't she?" Marcel smiled. "Which is just the kind of thing I've been looking for. See, I've been trying to think of a way to let you know, and forgive me if this is a little too frank, that…you're not welcome here. This is my town now. And this is my family."

A murmur of assent ran through the crowd. The vampire holding Caroline down slackened a little, focusing on Marcel's words. He continued, "But you haven't really been listening. And why would you? You're goddamn invincible."

Marcel put his arm around Klaus and jerked his head towards Caroline. "But she's not. Do you see where I'm going with this?"

"If you hurt her," Klaus said, very slowly and carefully, "I will rip out your heart and shove it down your throat. And then I will do the same to the rest of your _family_."

Marcel gave him an almost sympathetic look. "I figured as much. But the thing is, in the end, killing all of us won't make her any less dead, will it?"

The vampire on top of Caroline was starting to let down his guard. If she could just move her arms down a little…

Her eyes met Klaus's. She had a plan in mind. Not even a plan, just a need for action. He could tell, and he shook his head, just a fraction of an inch.

Marcel didn't seem to notice. "So, what do you say?"

Caroline narrowed her eyes and gave the tiniest nod, contradicting him.

"Can we be reasonable about this?"

If they were going to act, it would have to be soon. Klaus's face held a resigned look. It was no use trying to argue with Caroline when she set her mind to something.

"It doesn't—"

"Now!" Caroline yelled, and then several things happened in a few vampire-accelerated seconds.

Caroline grabbed the stake from the vampire's slackening hand and managed to force it in the opposite direction. It went in to the vampire's chest easily, more easily than she had imagined, like a knife in to butter. The vampire groaned as grayish veins started to creep up his face. His eyes turned cloudy and lifeless.

At the same time, Klaus's face became monstrous again over a split second as he tore in to the arms holding him back. There were yells of pain—he had bitten a few of them, and they would be as good as dead. Marcel was shouting something to the other vampires, Caroline couldn't tell what. But she knew, whatever it was, that the crowd was about to come for her.

She jumped up in time to see three of them heading right for her. She wished she had a weapon—a knife, a stake, vervain, anything. But there was no time.

The first vampire came barreling straight towards her. She waited until the last second and sidestepped him, hitting him with a sharp kick in the back from behind. High heels, Caroline reasoned, were the closest thing to a weapon she had.

The vampire staggered, on his knees. Caroline came from behind and snapped his neck. One down. Like a billion to go.

The second one, a female vampire, she flipped over on to the ground and held down while she clawed at Caroline's arms. Unable to reach her neck, Caroline kept her pinned while her mind raced for a way to get rid of her. The third vampire was almost here.

No more time to think. She kicked the pinned vampire towards the oncoming group, hoping to at least trip a few of them, and ran like hell.

Caroline headed down a long winding side-street, away from the center space when Klaus continued to tear through the crowd of vampires. The market was closed, the stalls still open. She ran past frilly dresses and linens, flimsy sequined masks that just barely caught the fading light. She prayed desperately for something sharp, something heavy, anything. She would settle for a toothpick.

She didn't dare to look behind her for fear of slowing down, but she heard shouts and hoped at least that Klaus was thinning the herd. The alleys twisted and turned before her. She ran erratically, changing direction at the last possible moment. The aisles were a blur beside her.

Trampling, sprinting footsteps followed her. She guessed there were about ten now. If she could just turn a few more corners, maybe there would be only five, or four…that many she could handle, maybe…

Suddenly, the market turned upside-down, and Caroline hit the floor, scraping skin from her face and hands. One of the vampires had caught her by the ankle and was dragging her towards him. There were ten of them, still ten of them, surrounding her in a circle, smiling victoriously as the one who had her by the ankle brought out a piece of jagged wood from inside his coat.

Before Caroline had time to get up, the vampire drove the stake in to her right shoulder. She cried out in pain and surprise.

"Come on, stop messing around," said one of the others, his voice panicky. "Finish her before Klaus gets here."

Caroline tried to gather her pain-addled thoughts. No weapons. Only one good arm. No time.

There was nothing else she could do. Gathering all her strength, she balled her hand in to a fist and drove it in to the vampire's chest. His mouth, which had been thin with concentration, gaped like a fish on dry land. She didn't want to think about what she was feeling inside his ribcage—warmth and stickiness and squelching organs. She closed her eyes, though it didn't help, and followed the warm, pulsing feeling until—there it was. She wrapped her hand around his heart and pulled.

The vampire gasped and clutched at his empty chest, letting loose his grip on the stake. With a yell, Caroline wrenched the stake out of her shoulder and dropped the still-warm heart on the floor.

The group around her was stunned for only a second before they attacked, but she had a weapon now. In one fluid motion she stabbed one, then another, watching them turn grey and pale and crumple at her feet. Another was coming, this one with a sword he had picked up while Caroline had been running too fast to see. She grabbed the sword with open palms, grimacing as it sliced her hand. She forced the sword back until it hit the vampire in the chest and, grabbing it by the hilt, she swung the sword in a circle which took the vampire's head with it.

She took them down one by one, realizing slowly that she was winning, winning when she had been outnumbered. It was an intoxicating feeling. She grabbed the stake from the abdomen of the last vampire she had killed and ran back towards the main hall, back where Klaus must still have been fighting them off.

With the stake in one hand and the sword in the other, she came bursting back in to the hall to find Klaus surrounded and Marcel gone. A group of fifteen still remained, circling Klaus and trying not to get too close to his snapping, poisonous jaws. He saw Caroline as she reappeared and his face became human again.

He seemed to be about to call out to her, but two vampires broke off from the circling pack and came running for her before he could say anything. They went down easily—one with the stake, one with the sword. Caroline was past them before the severed head hit the floor. She sped to the center of the room to meet Klaus, while the rest of the vampires kept a wary distance.

"Where's Marcel?"

"He ran off," said Klaus, keeping his eyes fixed on the remaining group. "I don't think he'll be in the position to be calling anybody _fragile_ for some time now."

A corner of Caroline's mouth turned up, but she quickly forced it back down.

It wasn't over yet. They stood back to back, waiting for the circling vampires to make a move.

"Attention all," Klaus said, surveying them. "Marcel has scampered with his tail between his legs. If you follow, we promise not to do any more damage to your little family. Deal?"

There was a second when they seemed to be considering it. Some of them stopped shifting, relaxed their arms. But then from out of the crowd came flying a shining little vial of liquid. Caroline barely had time to recognize it before it burst, with a sound like a gunshot. Vervain bomb.

It hit her exposed skin like acid. She cried out in pain as it seared, felt like it was burning her from the inside. She had gotten the worst of it, and Klaus took the opportunity to tear in to the crowd. The vampires scattered like billiard balls, but Klaus had his sights set on the one who had thrown the bomb. With one crunching, screaming twist, Klaus had taken his head clean off.

Caroline recovered herself as fast as she could, watching her skin heal before her eyes. There were four vampires heading for her, and she came at them, weapons still in hand. Klaus got between them before they could reach Caroline, and grabbed the first vampire he could.

"Deal's expired," he said, and sank his teeth in to the vampire's throat. Caroline was right on his heels and snapped the vampire's neck before he could finish his scream.

They were unstoppable. They tore through the rest of the group, slashing and staking and catching them as they tried to run, until Caroline's white camisole was stained almost completely red with blood. Finally, there was one left.

Klaus caught this last one from behind, forced his arms back almost to their breaking point.

"Would you care to do the honors?" he asked.

Caroline reached in to his chest. It was easier this time, way too easy. She grabbed hold of his heart and tore it out, leaving a gaping hole behind. The last vampire fell to the ground with a shuddering gasp, his eyes still open, terrified.

After the last vampire fell silent, there was only the sound of Klaus and Caroline, panting from exhaustion and exhilaration.

An eerie silence rang through the rest of the hall. Caroline looked around her, still anticipating another one coming. But there was nobody left. Bodies littered the hall, all of them grey and shriveled and unquestionably, irrevocably dead.

Klaus was looking at her in a way she had never seen before, his eyes bright, his expression…awed? She was starting to get a sick feeling.

He crossed over to her and took her face in his hands, smearing blood on her cheek as he did.

"You are…magnificent," he said.


	4. After Dark

**A/N: Soo…remember when I said this story was gonna take place over one day so it was only gonna be like five chapters? Yeah, about that…**

**I had plot stuff planned out, but once I started it I realized that it was moving a little too fast and didn't make so much sense. SO. Just ignore everything I said before. I have no idea how long this will be, and it definitely stretches past the one-day limit now. This chapter wraps up the day, but there WILL BE more after this. **

**It would probably just be less confusing if you didn't read my author's notes. Stop reading this! **

Klaus and Caroline rushed back to his apartment as fast as they could. Even in a vampire town, being drenched in blood tended to make passerby curious.

Caroline couldn't think. She didn't notice the ground under their feet, or the lights of Bourbon Street off in the distance, or the music, or the heat anymore. It was all just a dull blur underneath the roaring, pounding in her ears that said, _oh God oh God oh God_, _what did you do?_

It had felt like somebody else had been in control of her body. Somebody fierce and cold…because it couldn't have been her, it couldn't have been her.

_What did you do?_

That was all she heard until they were inside, and she heard the sound of Klaus's door latching behind her, leaving them alone in the darkened apartment.

"Caroline, that was unbelievable. Incredible. I didn't know you had it in you." Klaus was pacing around the front room, positively elated. "Marcel will have a hard time recovering from that one, won't he? Ha!"

She didn't say anything. The blood on her clothes was turning cold.

"I never thought he would dare attack me like that, but I suppose when he saw you he thought he'd found a weak point. Weak! I doubt he'll make that same kind of mistake again. That was just…brilliant. Honestly, when do you learn to do all that?"

"Elena taught me some stuff when she was in her Buffy phase," she said, only dimly aware of words coming out of her mouth.

Her voice and his sounded muffled, as if they came from behind a glass wall. She hadn't meant to kill them, not really, just stop them, it was self-defense, just self-defense. But then, at the end…were they running to kill her or running away? God, why couldn't she remember?

He crossed over to her, his eyes bright. "And you—with that sword? My god, I thought you were sexy before…"

"What?" she said. Her voice came out in a rasp. She had been brought back sharply in to reality. The pale moonlight streaming in from some doorway up ahead, the faint sounds of traffic and music coming from outside—they all came rushing back, along with the feeling that came with Klaus's words. Like a cold hand clutching her insides.

"I've just never seen you—"

"Sexy?" Her voice was shaky and faint, and it didn't sound like her own. It was full of disgust. "What, is this, like, a typical date for you? A nice restaurant, dancing, and then a massacre?"

The wide grin on his face faded. "Caroline—"

"No, really. I want to know, Klaus. Was this fun? What about when I ripped that last one's heart out? Did that do something for you? What about that one who will wake up in a few hours and find himself dying of a hybrid bite, surrounded by his dead friends? Does the thought of that just make you want to—"

He stepped back from her. "Enough."

She looked him up and down, seeing dark streaks of blood on his clothes, seeing that they matched hers, still feeling the pulse in her ears: _What did you do?_

"You're sick," she said. "You are really sick. I can't believe that I, even for one second—even _considered_—" She stopped. Her hands were balled in to fists, and she tried to release them, but she was shaking too hard. "But it's your fault. You were the one who pretended to be _nice_ and, and… _romantic_, and planned this whole awful day just to hide the fact that you are just a sick _freak_. Who probably deserves whatever Marcel has planned for you."

She headed for the door. She knew there was nowhere she could go, at least not until she changed her clothes, washed the matted blood out of her hair. Still, she couldn't be here. She didn't know what she would do if she stayed.

"And you're so superior?" said Klaus calmly.

She was trying to turn the doorknob, but her hands were shaking too badly. "What?" she asked.

"If I remember correctly, this isn't even your first massacre."

Caroline felt like she had just been punched in the stomach. She turned around.

"That was…that was just—I had to save Bonnie."

"Right, exactly," he stepped closer to her. "And this time, you just had to save…you. And it honestly didn't hurt me too much to see Marcel taken down a peg, either. Thank you for that."

"_Don't_—" she started, realizing her voice was starting to sound hysterical. When she spoke again, it was with a kind of forced calm. "Don't thank me. Don't thank me for this."

He gave her a sardonic smile. "Caroline. Try not to get too _Stefan_ about this whole thing. You're a vampire, killing is in your nature. You shouldn't have to feel guilty."

God. He really was messed up.

Caroline remembered suddenly that she had been trying to leave, and turned back to the door, saying, with shaky sarcasm, "Oh, well, thank you. You are the person I turn to for moral guidance."

She fumbled with the lock. Klaus watched her, an amused expression on his face. "As much as I enjoy your sharp wit, Caroline, even—or, actually, _especially_—when it is directed at me, I have to ask, what are you doing?"

"I'm getting the hell out of here," she said, finally making her hands stop shaking long enough for her to open the door.

"I seem to recall a deal you made with me? One day. There are twenty-four hours in a day, and by my count, you've got about nine, at least, to go."

She froze, her hand still on the open door. "You're seriously still holding me to that? Now? After…"

"What did you think the deal was? 'One whole day, unless Caroline kills lots of my enemies'?" He sighed. "I checked the flights, love, and there isn't one leaving for Virginia until tomorrow, anyway. So you can either stay at the airport all night, covered in blood, just to spite me, or you can make good on your promise."

The idea of leaving right this moment did seem appealing. But then again, she imagined herself all night, at the airport, with nothing else to wear and nothing to do or think of but what she had just done. And she couldn't think about it, she couldn't.

What she wanted most to do at this moment was just cry. But the thought of what Klaus would say if she did made her stop before she completely crumbled.

"Fine," she said, in the most vicious way she possibly could. She closed the door again.

"Good. What shall we do?"

Nothing, if she could help it. "I want to take a shower," said Caroline. "I want to get this awful day off me, and I want to not be around you for a while. Okay?"

He shrugged as if to say "suit yourself" and gestured down a hallway to the bathroom.

Caroline's heart gave a jolt as she stepped inside the room and saw herself in the mirror over the sink. She looked like she had just stepped out of a horror movie. She sort of had.

The problem was that, if this was a horror movie, she wasn't the victim. She was the—

No. No. Can't think about that now.

She made sure to lock the door (it still felt strange having Klaus around) and threw her bloody clothes on the white tile.

For a long time, she just stood under the stream of water, lost in thought despite how much she was trying to block it out. Finally, she snapped back to the present, grabbed a bar of soap, and started scrubbing furiously. She wanted to get every trace of red off, but there was some of it—under her fingernails, lining her hair—that stayed, even though she worked until her skin was raw.

She didn't come out until she felt that she absolutely had to—when the hot water started to run out and she was as clean as she was ever going to be. Despite the warmth, she was still shaking.

With a sinking feeling, she realized, as she turned off the shower, that she didn't have anything to wear that wasn't…that didn't have…well, she would have to ask Klaus.

She came out of the bathroom wearing two towels—she did not, under any circumstances, want him to misconstrue anything she did just now as flirting—and expected to find him there, with an annoying smile and an even more annoying remark. Instead, when she stepped back out in to the front room, there were a pair of black pants and a shirt draped over the back of a chair.

Caroline looked around suspiciously, though she didn't know what she was expecting. Eventually necessity won out and she grabbed the clothes and hurried back to the bathroom to change.

When she came back out again, there was still nobody there. She ventured further down the hallway until she came to a door that was already halfway open.

The room inside was full of half-open boxes in piles, scattered pieces of paper, a bed that looked virtually untouched. To the side, in an armchair, sat Klaus, immersed in his sketchbook. He didn't look up when she came in, but said, "Oh, good. You found them."

"So…you just have women's clothes lying around for occasions like this?" asked Caroline, stepping inside.

He still didn't look up. "Don't be vulgar. They're Rebekah's."

"Oh." She sat on the bed, wrinkling the pristine black comforter. "So, what now?"

"Hmm?"

"I mean, don't you have something else planned? Isn't that why I had to stay?"

Klaus added a few lines to whatever it was he was drawing, frowning as he concentrated. "I did have an end to the evening planned, before Marcel decided to intervene. I think I far prefer this outcome, though."

"What was it? What you had planned?"

He finally looked up from his sketchbook long enough to read her expression. "I was going to take you to City Park. It's lovely at sunset. Then there is a nightclub on Bourbon Street I thought you would like: 'Howl at the Moon.'"

"Hmm. Cute."

"I thought you would think so."

She ran a hand absent-mindedly over the comforter. "Sounds a hell of a lot nicer than, you know…"

He seemed to be finishing his sketch. He lifted his hand up from the paper, the side of it covered in charcoal dust. "_Nice_," he scoffed. "Now there's an overrated word."

As if for evidence, he turned his sketchbook around and showed her what he had been drawing. It was Caroline, as Klaus had seen her just after the fight—after the massacre. Her hair tangled, her skin streaked with blood, her eyes alight. The way he drew her, she was wild and beautiful—and terrifying.

Caroline jumped up from the bed as if he were holding a poisonous spider out to her.

"I just had to capture that look…you know, while it was still fresh in my memory…" he was saying.

She started edging toward the door again. What had she been thinking, anyway? Wanting to talk to Klaus? "Well, if you don't have anything planned, I think I just want to go to sleep. Really tired."

He started to say something, seeing the look in her eyes as she stared at the drawing. But before he could, Caroline said, quickly, "And before you ask, I'll sleep in the front room. You stay here."

XXX

Klaus, uncharacteristically, didn't argue with her.

She didn't hear anything more out of him as she arranged blankets on the divan, or when she lay down, realizing, with a kind of inner groan, that she would sleep facing Klaus's painting, or when she finally fell in to an uneasy sleep.

It was a kind of half-dream, somewhere between nightmare and reality, darting quickly between images and faces. One minute she was staring at Klaus's painting, watching the blue streaks of paint like veins—then she was looking down at the vampire she'd just killed, watching veins climb up his neck…

She was holding a gleaming red heart in her hand, blood leaving little spots on the floor. When she looked up, her mother was standing in front of her, her eyes wide, her hand reaching out, a gaping hole in her chest. Caroline tried to run to her, saying, "No, no, no, no, no…" like a fevered prayer. But a hand caught at her leg and sent her reeling backward.

She landed flat on her back, a dark red sky above her head. The hand that had caught her by the ankle was traveling up her leg, grazing her inner thigh. Klaus appeared above her, his eyes yellow and wild. He whispered in her ear with bloodstained lips: _"Wish I could have painted you in the twenties, love…that girl, she was nothing compared to you…"_

Without warning, he thrust a hand in to her chest and with one motion—almost lazy, languid, he pulled her heart out and held it up for her to see. She felt like all the air had left her. She was gasping, her chest convulsing, trying to reach out, the world going dim.

When Caroline awoke, it was with a gasp of air, as if she had been drowning. She wrenched herself up to a sitting position, and realized just as suddenly that she was going to be sick.

She ran for the bathroom and crumpled over the toilet as her stomach heaved, but there wasn't anything in her stomach to empty. Eventually the convulsions subsided, and she lay down on the cool white tile, shaking. It felt like her whole body was beating along with her heart.

Caroline had never really thought much before about why vampires turn off their emotions. She thought she was starting to understand now.

When she finally had the energy to lift her head, she looked at the little digital clock over the sink and saw that it was just past one in the morning. Five hours to go.

It felt so quiet that the sound of her breath, very gradually slowing down, was deafening. There was absolutely no way she could get back to sleep now. At that moment, it seemed unlikely that she'd ever sleep again. The idea of just being alone with her thoughts, with nothing to distract her, was more than she could stand.

She stood up and found her feet taking her down the hall before she'd really decided to do anything. All Caroline knew was that she couldn't bear to be alone just now.

She hesitated before his door for a few minutes, raising her fist to knock and then lowering it again, almost walking away but then finding her legs wouldn't move. Finally, she tapped her knuckles lightly on the door and whispered his name, quietly enough that if he were human he wouldn't have heard.

When Klaus opened the door, he looked rumpled, but not surprised to see her.

Leaning against the door frame, he asked, "Trouble sleeping?"

All of a sudden she was reconsidering how badly she wanted company. "Sort of," she said.

"So, what can the sick freak do for you?"

Caroline looked down at the carpet. "I'm sorry about that." She let out an anxious laugh. "I mean, after the…who am I to judge?"

"That's never stopped you before," said Klaus. His tone wasn't bitter. If anything, he made it sound like an endearing quality.

"Right." Her hand fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. "But I am sorry."

Klaus raised his eyebrows. He wasn't used to her being the one to apologize.

"I was just…sleeping, and I feel like I can't…" she mumbled. This was harder to explain than she had thought. She tried to take a deep breath. "Could I…stay with you for a while?"

"You need some comfort?" he asked. Caroline had a sinking feeling, remembering what had happened the last time she had wanted Klaus to help her feel better about something like this. She expected that she would get the same sort of harsh reply as she had then. But her apology must have made more of an impression than she'd thought. He stepped aside from the door to let her inside.

It was pitch dark inside Klaus's room, which Caroline was actually glad of. There was something soothing about the dark, something that reminded her of spilling secrets in between sleeping bags, in days that belonged to another life. She inched cautiously forward and bumped her shin on the bed. She sank down on to the comforter, feeling Klaus's weight next to her.

"Just so you know, when I said stay with you, I didn't mean…" she said quickly. "I just wanted some company."

"I knew what you meant, Caroline."

She nodded, and then felt stupid because he couldn't see her.

A few minutes passed in silence. Caroline wasn't sure if he had fallen asleep again. Even though it had been her idea to come here, she still felt surprised that she didn't feel more uncomfortable in Klaus's room, having him next to her. She felt herself starting to drift off again, though she was still afraid of falling in to another nightmare.

Maybe it was this drowsiness, maybe it was the comforting feeling of not being seen, maybe she just wanted to see if he was still awake. But after a while, Caroline whispered in to the dark, "Klaus? Can I ask you something?"

There was a pause in which she thought that he must really be asleep. But she felt him turn over beside him and he said, "What is it?"

"Have you ever…I mean, if there was a reason to…have you ever turned your emotions off?"

Another pause. "No," he said quietly. "No, I've never turned it off." He must have felt like he had to explain, because he continued, "I've never…to turn your emotions off, you have to feel so much that it's unbearable. You have to love so much that you put someone else's happiness before your own. That has…never been a problem for me."

"Oh," she said. She hadn't expected such an honest answer. "Just curious," she said, feebly.

They didn't say anything after that, and Caroline felt herself slowly drifting in to a sleep which, thank God, this time didn't involve any dreams at all.

XXX

If Klaus had thought that the previous night had helped him make some sort of headway with Caroline, the harsh light of day proved him wrong.

He awoke to an empty bed, empty apartment, and a note left on the table in the front hall. It wasn't signed, but it was obvious who had written it. All it said was,

_I left after 6 AM. You got your twenty-four hours. _


	5. Home

**A/N: A small warning. This chapter turned out sooooo angsty. But hopefully once you get to the end you'll understand why it had to be that way. Thanks, as always, for the favorites, follows, and reviews! They make me happy. **

She felt a little bad about leaving the way she did.

Just a little.

She'd woken up just before six—some kind of internal clock, telling her not to stay a second longer than she had to—with Klaus's arm around her waist and a faint beam of light hitting her in the eyes. There had been three seconds, three wonderful, half-asleep seconds, when she hadn't remembered anything that had happened, and had thought that what she felt over her was the familiar weight of her comforter at home, that she was about to hear her mom calling that she was heading off to work.

And then everything hit her again.

She had wanted to jump out of bed and _run_ away from there. Really, she thought, it showed a lot of self-restraint that she had bothered to gently move his arm away, slowly and carefully, so as to not wake him up, quietly gather all her things, and leave a note.

That was what she told herself, but her stomach still twisted in to knots the entire flight back. Of course, it might have just been excess guilt, because she had plenty to go around.

It was a bright and sunny summer day when she arrived back in Virginia and caught a bus the rest of the way to Mystic Falls, the kind of day when unhappiness seems impossible. She spent the bus ride listening to music turned up as loud as it would go on her iPod, and trying to make a list—lists were good, lists were orderly and distracting and required concentration—of all the things she wanted to do before she left for college.

Caroline told herself that the day with Klaus—the dancing and the painting and the…thing she didn't want to think about—would feel like a faraway dream once she was finally back in Mystic Falls, with her friends and family and…basically, all the things and people in her life that proved she was different from him.

She had been cautiously optimistic, on that first, bright cloudless day, that she could return to normalcy, write off that day as a fluke, and, if she was away from Klaus and New Orleans, move on with her life.

But it became clear all too quickly that she simply couldn't.

XXX

She hadn't been home more than a few days before the dreams started to creep in again.

Almost every night she killed somebody she loved, over and over. Her mother showed up fairly often. Sometimes her father, already gone but not from her memory, appeared. He liked to say, just before Caroline ripped out his heart: "You know, sweetie, I'm disappointed. But I'm not surprised. I tried to tell you that my little girl died when she became a vampire."

Her friends made their appearances, too. Elena and Bonnie and Stefan and Matt and Tyler…even people, like Damon, who she would have never expected to feel such fierce grief over.

She never cried out in her sleep, so her mother still didn't know.

In the middle of the night, Caroline would wake up, shaking and covered in sweat, and always she would consider—desperately wish that she could—running to her mother's door and falling in to her arms and telling her exactly what she had been dreaming and why. And in this first, hopeful fantasy, her mother would tell her that it was all right, what had happened, and that it wasn't her fault, somehow.

But then Caroline would take a breath, and consider it realistically. It wasn't remotely all right, what had happened. And her mother wouldn't say it was. The look of horror and disgust and fear that Caroline imagined on her mother's face was enough to keep her in her own room night after night.

She could never know. None of them could ever know.

XXX

"And you'll be in charge of music, right?" … "Caroline?"

She looked up, not realizing she had been lost in her own thoughts again.

"Hello? Where's Miss Party Planner Extraordinaire when we need her?"

Wherever she was, it was far away from the Mystic Grill where Elena, accompanied by a bored but indulgent Damon, sat planning a summer beach party.

Caroline shook her head, distractedly stirring her glass of ice water with a straw. "Sorry. I'm kinda spacey today."

Back before everything, Caroline had been the one to suggest the party in the first place. It had seemed like a good idea, after yet another heavy and difficult year and the prospect of college in the fall. Plus, there was Jeremy's re-entering the world to celebrate. Still, it seemed like in this town it was never the right time for a party. Stefan had been acting strange ever since graduation, Bonnie was staying with her mother, Matt was circling the globe with Rebekah, Tyler was away after the bite incident, and Katherine and Elijah were still in town, casting a dark pall over everything as Katherine tried to adjust to human life. It turned out she wasn't any more of a picnic as a human than she had been as a vampire.

Caroline had thought it would help, being back in all the little dramas that constantly ran through Mystic Falls. Help keep her mind off things. But lately it all felt like white noise.

"Still not sleeping?" Elena asked.

"Yeah," said Caroline. "Maybe it's finally that nocturnal vampire thing kicking in. Maybe it would help if I tried sleeping upside-down in a cave."

Elena smiled. That was a trick Caroline had been honing lately. If she made some kind of joke, even a feeble one, people figured she must not need that much concern. And then they stopped asking how she was.

"So you're music?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on top of it," said Caroline. "I'll be great."

"Can I just interject here and ask again why we're doing this?" Damon said suddenly, looking up from his phone.

Elena sighed in a way that didn't convince anybody she was really annoyed. She and Damon were still in sort of a honeymoon phase. To Caroline, it was a little sickening. "_Because_," she said, "it's summer, and it's beautiful up at the lake, and some of us are leaving in the fall, and we need some cheering up. We need a last hurrah."

"In case you haven't noticed, our hurrahs don't have the greatest track record, Elena."

"Then I guess we're due," she said stubbornly.

They bickered amicably for a while, while Caroline tuned them out and stabbed at her ice with her straw.

XXX

Caroline's mother hadn't really asked about her trip. It was partly self-preservation. When you had a daughter who got in to life-threatening situations as often as Caroline, you grew tired of worrying and learned not to ask about everything.

Caroline had thought she was done talking about her trip at all when she arrived home the first day. Her mother had asked how it had gone, and Caroline had said, "Fine. Not dying," and that was it. But for whatever reason, her mother decided to bring it up after dinner on one of the rare nights they were both at home.

"So, did you get to do anything fun in New Orleans?"

Caroline almost dropped the plate she had been drying off with a dishtowel. "Uh," she said. Her mind was a sudden blank. Why would she bring this up now? "Not really, why?"

"Oh, just wondering. You were stuck there for an extra day, weren't you?"

"Yeah," she said, carefully. "No flights."

"So, what did you do? I can't believe you just stayed at the airport all day."

She put the plate down, telling herself there was no reason to panic. "No, I just…I don't know. Walked around a little. Saw some art museums, that kind of thing."

"Really, which ones?" Her mother seemed genuinely curious, but to Caroline this was feeling like an interrogation.

"I don't remember," said Caroline. It was, at least, the truth.

"Oh," she said. "It's just exciting, isn't it? I mean, I know it wasn't the best of circumstances, but you've never been outside Mystic Falls before…I just wish you could have more chances to travel. You know, before school starts up in the fall."

"Uh-huh," said Caroline. "Listen, mom, I'm kinda tired, I think I should probably just—"

"Are you all right, sweetie? You seem a little tense."

Sweetie. That was what she always said before Caroline killed her in her dreams.

"Fine," she said. This was the closest anybody had gotten to thing she was trying so desperately to hide, and she wanted to tell. She wanted to tell so badly it felt like a weight on her chest that she might finally get to take off. "It's just…in New Orleans, and with Klaus…I don't know."

"What is it?"

She felt an adrenaline rush. She could tell her, right now. But then… "It's just…it wasn't that much fun, in New Orleans. You know, he always makes me kind of uneasy."

Her heart rate slowed again. It wasn't going to be now. She just couldn't.

"I hope he didn't give you too much trouble," her mother said.

"Oh, no, nothing like that. I was just…I don't know, a little worried. Since it was just him there. Usually there are a bunch of people around. But it was fine. I mean, nothing happened."

Her mother's look of concern didn't fade, but she said, "Well, that's good. I have to say, I wasn't too sorry to see him leave this town. I was starting to worry about you. He always seemed to…pay you a lot of attention."

"Yeah," said Caroline, though her mind was still on the thing she had almost confessed. "Yeah, he did."

"Not exactly the kind of person you want hanging around."

Caroline knew what her mother meant. She herself had said hundreds of similar things about Klaus, hundreds of things that were even worse. But for some reason the words left a sting. It wasn't something she could explain to herself, much less her mother.

"Yeah," she said finally. "No kidding."

XXX

The night before the beach party, Caroline had another dream.

She was wearing red (of course red, all her dreams these days were soaked in red), this time in the form of an elegant gown from a time and place she couldn't name. She was walking down an ornate hall, the walls laced with gold and covered in framed paintings. There was something pulling her forward, something very important that she had to do, though when she was awake the next day she couldn't have said what. But whatever it was, it made her pass by several feet of paintings before a small, nagging feeling told her she should stop to look at one.

She looked to her right, at a picture as tall as she was. It was close enough to touch, and she did, running a hand over the grainy surface. It was a scene from her own life. Or maybe it was. She recognized the faces, the scene, the colors and textures. But it was still unfamiliar. It was everybody she knew, at some party. At school, maybe. All of her friends were there, their faces rendered laughing, taking a drink from red plastic cups, eyes closed as they danced in still motion.

She was fixated, staring at their faces. She didn't turn around when she heard footsteps behind her, felt arms slide around her, hands clasp together over her stomach.

Caroline knew who it was, and thought later that she shouldn't have experienced a warm rush of gratitude to feel him there. But in dreams, emotions aren't always what they should be.

"Is this one of yours?" she asked.

"Oh, no," said Klaus. "This isn't the sort of subject I would pick."

"I think it's nice."

"Really?" he said. "It feels so…far away."

"No…it's right here." She let her hand slide over the surface, feel where the brush strokes ended and began. "It's right here."

But just as she said it, it was as if the painting was suddenly made of melting ice. The colors ran under her fingers, slipping down the golden walls, leaving an empty frame behind.

She felt Klaus's arms grip her closer, "_I'm _right here," he said, leaving a light kiss on her temple.

And that was when her dream took the turn that her dreams always took, these days. Wrenching out of his grasp, she turned to face him. The walls were changing, too, their light white and gold finish turning red—red, like everything else. "You…" she breathed.

His eyes were only starting to grow wide with apprehension when she tackled him to the ground, tearing the ends of her dress as she did. He was dressed as elegantly as she was, Caroline noticed, as she pinned him down. He didn't try to struggle, only watched her, as if it was inevitable—and in her dreams, it was—as she slid her fingers over the buttons of his shirt, finding the center of his chest. She reached in, past his shirt, past his skin, and caught a hold of his heart.

He smiled wistfully through a grimace of pain. "It's already yours," he said.

Caroline pulled his heart out of his chest, watched the light leave his eyes, and that was where the dream ended.

XXX

The day of the party, Caroline piled in a van with everybody else and let the stereo system drown out her thoughts for a while as they headed up to the lake.

She had woken up at four AM that morning—not by choice, but because of the dream she had been having. She'd gotten all right at calming herself down lately, was able to look around and grip the sheets underneath her and remind herself that _this_, right here, was real, and the dream wasn't. But this one had shaken her. Once she got over the initial shock of waking up, she had started to cry. The kind with huge, shaking fits of sobs that left her exhausted by the time she was actually supposed to wake up.

The van packed with people had left in the afternoon, and by that time Caroline mostly just wanted to get drunk and forget who she was for a little while. It was the kind of thing she used to be so good at.

It was a bright, clear night out at the lake, only made foggy by the curls of smoke coming from the bonfire they had built. After it turned dark outside, stars came out overhead and lit up the inky black lake. It was nice, really it was. That was what Caroline kept reminding herself as she flitted from conversation to conversation, taking a drink whenever somebody offered one to her.

Once everybody got tired of dancing and standing around, some people went inside the cabin to get away from the smoke. Caroline and a few others, including Damon and Elena, stayed outside to sit around the slowly dying fire. It was cold for summer, and people huddled together, as close to the fire as they could get. Maybe it was Caroline's imagination, but there seemed to be a lot of couples around, arms around each other, watching the embers. It was the kind of thing you only noticed when you were alone.

Finally the last little spark of the fire faded, and everybody who had stayed outside started slowly standing up, heading for the cabin. Caroline almost followed, but the thought of all the people inside made her realize that she wouldn't be very good company. She caught Elena before she went inside and told her she was going for a walk.

Caroline started circling the lake. Once she had gotten halfway around she wished she had just gone inside with the others. Lately it was like she always wished she had some company when she was alone, and only wanted to be alone when she had company. She pulled out her phone, just to have something to do with her hands, and started scrolling through her contacts list as she walked.

She stopped when she came to Klaus's number in her phone. Just Klaus—she hadn't given him a last name. Her thumb lingered over the button. Before she had time to think about it, she pressed the 'talk' button and held the phone up to her ear.

It was cutting in and out—must be bad reception where she was—but eventually she heard a grainy ring on the other end. It rang once, twice…and then Caroline ended the call. What was she doing? Maybe she was more drunk than she'd thought. But still…the phone still sat in her hand, and she wanted to press 'talk' again.

She hurried the rest of the way around the lake. That want she felt was turning in to ideas, which turned in to plans, which turned in to acts as soon as she was home again.

XXX

Caroline had an entire bus ride, an entire plane ride, and lots of questions from her mother to reconsider what she was doing. But it was like she had shut all thinking out.

Within the next twenty-four hours, Caroline found herself in a situation that was becoming more familiar all the time. She stood in front of Klaus's door, knocking to come in.


	6. Allies

**A/N: Sorry about the bit of a wait, guys. Life has started to become busy again, so there will probably be a longer time between these coming chapters than the first three or four. BUT that does not mean that I've died or that I've forgotten about this story. Just so you know. Thank you, as always, the reviews, follows, and favorites!**

It had been four weeks since Caroline had walked the streets of New Orleans. Four weeks of bad dreams and stifled secrets, and with everything that she had been feeling, Caroline hadn't given much thought to what would be happening back in Louisiana. But something had.

She didn't know what, but she could feel it. Maybe it was the way people seemed to either deliberately meet her eye, or deliberately not. Maybe it was the music—not as loud and raucous as before, but slower, quiet. Maybe it was the time of day—sunset, casting amber rays on the stony ground. Maybe it was just her imagination.

Caroline felt a different kind of apprehension as she stood in front of Klaus's door again. Three weeks ago, she had been worried about what he might do if they were alone together. This time, she was more worried about what _she_ might do. But not worried enough to leave.

She knocked a few times, giving her aching shoulder a rest by setting her suitcase down on the floor. This time, it was Klaus who answered the door.

He stood there for a few stunned seconds, still holding the open door with one hand. He must have been too surprised to be his usual glib self, because the only thing he said was her name, softly. It was this, besides the simple fact that Caroline, despite all her best judgment, was happy to see him, that made her reach out and wrap her arms around him.

It was a little strange. It was just an impulse, something you did when you met a friend who you hadn't seen for a long while. Which, I guess (thought Caroline), makes him a friend. Huh.

It occurred to her that she couldn't think of anybody else in the world who fit that description for Klaus. He didn't have friends. He had a family who hated and loved him. He had most everybody else, who just hated him. And he had her, and she certainly didn't love him. But at this moment, she didn't hate him, either.

If he was surprised by her sudden show of affection, he didn't say anything. He put his arms around her. Even if it didn't happen to Klaus very often, holding somebody wasn't something you forgot how to do.

"Don't tell me you've been bitten by _another_ werewolf," he said, still a little stunned.

She laughed. It felt like a long time since she had. "No," said Caroline.

He drew back. "Then what is it?"

He thought there must be something wrong in Mystic Falls. Why else would she come back, after she had left so suddenly and coldly before? Caroline realized in that moment that it was going to be hard to explain that nothing was wrong—nothing and everything.

She didn't answer him. Instead she said, "I want to go somewhere."

"What?"

"You know this city better than anyone. Where should we go?"

His face held a bemused expression for a moment, but he didn't question her any further. Clearly he didn't want to waste this opportunity. There was time to ask about whys and hows later. "I know just the place," he said.

XXX

There was a bar on Freret Street called Cure that was just beginning to let in its evening clientele as Klaus and Caroline arrived. The air was thick and humid as they stepped out of the cab. To Caroline, it felt like somebody was constantly behind her, leaving warm breath on the back of her neck.

Cure was upscale and intimidating, with hard brick walls lined with bottles of every shape and color. As the sun started going down, little light bulbs came on overhead, giving the impression of fireflies floating over their heads.

The cocktails had strange names like Casanova Quinn and Whiskey Sinister, and had ingredients and extracts that Caroline had never even heard of, but she tried as many as she could, constantly trying to get the waiter's attention from a table in the corner. On her second drink—this one called Anonimo—she raised her glass to clink with Klaus's, saying, "So, this is how classy people get hammered."

He smiled indulgently at her as he set down his own glass. "You spent hundreds of dollars on a plane ticket and traveled eight hundred miles just to get drunk?"

"No…" said Caroline. "You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars when you can compel the airport guys."

Klaus raised his eyebrows. "Really. That is…bordering on immoral, Caroline. I'm impressed." She gave a half-sarcastic nod, but Klaus continued, "It still doesn't explain why you would take the trouble to be here, though."

She just shrugged. For the first time in weeks she didn't feel as if a world of cares and guilt were on her shoulders, and she didn't want to worry about it now. Explaining everything was the last thing she wanted to do.

"Am I going to have to guess?"

She took a sip of her drink. It was a harsh taste to begin, but the aftertaste was sweet. "Aren't you glad to see me, Klaus?"

She had said it to distract him and to stop him asking questions. It had worked, his expression softening suddenly. "Love, I'm always glad to see you," he said.

Caroline was on her third drink when a woman entered the bar. She was older, maybe in her forties, with dark hair held back with a scarf. Metal bracelets jingled at her wrist. Caroline knew the type: a witch. The woman's brown eyes widened as she saw the two of them in the corner, and before Caroline could ask Klaus who she was, she was heading over to their table.

Klaus didn't seem surprised to see her, but Caroline was wary. She probably should have asked earlier, what it was that had so changed the mood in New Orleans since she had left.

The witch stood in front of their table and asked Klaus, "This is her?"

Caroline looked over at Klaus, confused. He smiled and nodded his head. "This is Caroline."

It was hard to tell from the woman's tone whether it was a good thing to be Caroline at this moment. But she reached out for Caroline's hands, bracelets jangling, and placed something in to her palm.

"Good to meet you," she said, with a warm and strangely grateful smile.

Caroline opened her hand. She held a bundle of chicken bones, tied together with beaded leather straps. "Um…thanks," said Caroline, because it seemed the polite thing.

"It's a protection spell. For you," said the witch. "Not that you need it."

"Protection?" Caroline asked. She glanced over at Klaus, who gave her an 'I'll-explain-later' sort of look.

"Just a token of our appreciation," she said, with gravity.

Caroline had been about to stammer out a question, or a thank you, but the witch was straightening up again. "I shouldn't stay long," she said, her eyes flickering to the window and the darkened street outside. "I hope you understand."

Klaus nodded, and the woman left again.

"What was that all about?" Caroline asked, trying not to wrinkle her nose as she set down the bundle of chicken bones.

Klaus took a sip of his drink, apparently unfazed by the encounter. "I should have thought it would be obvious," he said.

She frowned. "Well, apparently not."

"Sweetheart, you've become famous around here. Or infamous, in some circles. You didn't think everything we did would have no impact, did you?"

"Oh," said Caroline, feeling her stomach tighten just at the mention of that night. "No, it had an impact."

"In one day, you managed to make yourself—and me—a lot of allies."

"Allies?"

Klaus leaned in closer, as if someone around them might overhear. "The witches. Marcel has had them on a very short leash for quite a few years."

"So Marcel is, what, the king around here?" Caroline asked.

Klaus smiled. "Well, that is the question, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?"

He reached for her hand, and she didn't pull away. "If Marcel is the king, people seem to think that we are next in the line of succession."

"_We?" _

"Brilliant, isn't it?"

Caroline didn't really know what to think about it. She was definitely anti-Marcel, but on the other hand, she didn't exactly want to be remembered and honored for something that she was very literally finding hard to live with. Plus, there was the whole problem with 'we'—her and Klaus—that she couldn't begin to sort out.

"Could I get another drink?" she finally asked.

XXX

It had started to get claustrophobic in the bar once night had truly fallen and vampires came passing by—some with murderous glances, some with looks of wary respect—and Caroline asked Klaus to take her somewhere else. He took it for granted that the place should be a surprise.

Whatever the place was, it was within walking distance. Caroline wished now that she hadn't had _so_ much to drink. It seemed like walking around after dark, after she'd just been told that she essentially had a bullseye on her back (at least where Marcel was concerned), and with not exactly razor sharp reflexes, was probably asking for trouble.

Klaus did most of the talking as they walked along. He wanted to explain all of the more intricate details of everything happening in New Orleans, who was on their side and who wasn't, and who was still undecided, and the empire he'd once had here. He seemed so enthusiastic that Caroline didn't have the heart to stop him. Besides, it was nice to get out of her own head for a while.

They were passing by a rundown motel with blue shutters, and Caroline was just beginning to stop looking behind her as they turned corners, stop worrying that someone was out to get her. And, of course, that was exactly when somebody actually was.

She felt a shooting pain in her back and doubled over before she knew the reason for it. She heard a yell and looked down to see the end of a wooden arrow sticking out of her chest, maybe one inch away from her heart.

It was more from surprise than from pain that she fell to her knees. Her arm reached out and caught Klaus's hand, and he turned around, stunned for a second before Caroline's hand dragged him down, too, and he saw the arrow.

"Oh my god." His voice was ragged. He thought—

"It missed my heart," Caroline said, and with her teeth gritted, she pulled the arrow out again.

As soon as it clattered to the ground, Klaus stood up again to scan the rooftops around them. The arrow had come in at a downward angle. But he didn't see anybody.

"Cowards," he hissed, as Caroline stood up. She was fine, except for shock and a hole through her shirt.

She was about to say that they should get inside somewhere, but Klaus was grabbing her hand and pulling her along. He had seen something.

This part of town was a far way from the glamorous art galleries and restaurants on Royal Street. Now that Caroline really looked around, she saw that they were in the middle of a string of cheap motels and huge concrete parking garages. One such garage was where they were heading now, climbing up a labyrinth of grey steps until they reached the top.

"Klaus, he's probably already—" Caroline started to say, trying to catch her breath. But before she could finish, another wooden arrow came shooting past them. Klaus ran in to the dark after the source of the assault, and Caroline reluctantly followed.

The person, whoever it was, was lost in the shadow of another building, out of sight of the street lamps. It was a good place to hide, but it also forced their attacker in to a corner. With Klaus coming in from one side, the person decided to make one more desperate effort. He—and Caroline saw, now, that it was a he—came hurtling straight for her, crossbow at the ready.

She barely had time to process what was happening, much less get out of the way. Maybe the attacker had planned to shoot her mid-run and then get away from Klaus as fast as possible, or maybe he had always known that attacking the two of them was a kamikaze mission. But either way, he charged towards Caroline and slammed her to the ground. The force of the impact on his hand made the crossbow skitter off to the side, somewhere in the dark.

Caroline only had time to register the barest details about the attacker: a man—or actually, a vampire—with nondescript brown hair and eyes. In the moment those details took to sink in, the vampire's hands clenched around her throat.

It wasn't more than a few seconds before Klaus intervened. He grabbed the man by his shoulders and threw him to the ground, away from Caroline.

"Are you here on Marcel's orders?" Klaus shouted, holding the attacker by his shirt collar. He didn't reply, and Klaus shouted it again. Meanwhile, Caroline searched on her hands and knees for the crossbow that had slid away.

"Answer me!" But the man still didn't say anything. His eyes flicked over to Caroline, who had just found the crossbow and was beginning to stand up. Klaus followed his gaze and looked over his shoulder, and the man took the opportunity. In one quick motion, he pulled a small, sharp wooden stake out of his pocket and drove it in to Klaus's hand, which let go of his collar at once.

Klaus let out a sharp gasp of pain as the man freed himself and ran at Caroline again. But this time she was ready, and pointing the crossbow at his heart. Her hands were shaking a little, but the aim was dead on. The man froze.

"I…I don't want to hurt you," said Caroline.

The man stayed frozen. He still didn't say anything. If he was here because of Marcel, it was clear he was too loyal to give anything away. And if Caroline let him go, he would only try to kill her again. It made all the sense in the world just to pull the trigger now…but she couldn't do it. Not again. Not after…

But she had forgotten about Klaus. He wrenched the stake out of his hand, and in a split second, he had sunk the sharp point of it in to the man's back. Their attacker's eyes widened as his skin began to turn grey and dead, and he crumpled at their feet.

The silence was suddenly deafening.

Caroline lowered her weapon. "I said I didn't want to hurt him."

"Right, so _I_ did," said Klaus. He didn't understand.

"I didn't want—" Her voice was becoming choked suddenly, her vision becoming blurry with tears. She dropped the crossbow on the ground with a cracking thud.

"That look he had, when he died...That look—I'm so sick of it! I see it all the time. I can't take it anymore, I just can't!" It was hard to speak now, and all she could do was let out a shuddering sob.

Klaus face held a concerned look that Caroline had rarely seen there before. He stepped closer to her, around the body at their feet. "What do you mean, you see it all the time?"

She couldn't have answered if she wanted to. Everything would have just come out in an unintelligible wail. Instead, she surprised both him and herself by hiding her face against his shoulder and letting him hold her again.

Klaus didn't seem to know what to do at first. He seemed to want to ask her what was wrong, but she was still crying too hard to be able to speak. For several minutes he was silent while Caroline tried to regain her composure.

When she was able to speak again, she said, "I'm so tired of blood…and death…and it always seems to be my fault."

He didn't say anything for a while. He was stroking her hair, softly. It helped. When he finally said something it was to repeat his question from a few minutes ago: "Caroline, what did you mean when you said you see that look all the time?"

Pressed up against him, she was almost afraid that Klaus could feel her heart rate speed up with that question. It was the same surge of adrenaline that she had felt when she had wanted to confess what she had done to her mother. But this time it was different, weaker. She heard herself telling him things, before she had had a chance to decide whether she wanted him to know.

"I haven't been able to stop thinking about that night when I—" she hadn't been able to say it, even think it, but this was different. Klaus was the only person in the world who knew, who could begin to understand. "—When I killed all those people. I dream about it every night. I dream about killing everybody I know. My parents, and Elena and Stefan…even you."

Her voice was starting to become strangled again, but she kept talking. "And I couldn't tell anybody. I kept thinking about the looks on their faces, I just couldn't…" That was where she had to stop again. A fresh wave of sobs came over her, and she clung tighter to him as they did.

Still stroking her hair, Klaus said, with a half-hearted laugh, "I suppose it doesn't help to know that all this makes me love you even more."

Caroline let out a strange sound that was supposed to be a laugh but ended up as another sob. "You loved it when I was killing all those vampires. You called me _magnificent_."

"I was impressed by your ability, Caroline. But I'm more impressed by your humanity," said Klaus. "It's exactly what I don't have."

He said the next few words slowly and carefully, so she would be sure to hear them. "I fell in love with you because I've never met anybody before who was so unlike me."

Caroline stopped sobbing, slowly. It was like she was hearing those last words echoing over and over in her head.

"You've never told me that before," she said.

"Well, I—" he started to say. But before he could finish whatever it was, Caroline had kissed him.

It felt inevitable, in the same way that pulling out his heart in her dreams had felt inevitable. She'd meant it as a sort of thank you—thank you for saying those things, thank you for being here, for not hating me. But the second she'd closed the gap between them she realized that, of course, it was about much more than that. Certainly for him it was.

It was softer, sweeter than she'd imagined—and she had imagined it, even as she prefaced her fantasies with, "I hate him, but…". It was funny how traveling the eight hundred miles to come back to New Orleans had seemed like nothing, like a whim. And yet here was a much shorter distance that she had crossed, and it felt like jumping off a cliff.


	7. Rainfall

**A/N: Sorry about the long wait again, guys. I was taking a summer class which just had its final, so hopefully I'll have more writing time now that it's done. Before I start, I'll say my usual thank you for the reviews, follows, favorites, etc. I want to give a particular shout out to Arabella, who always leaves such awesome reviews. Thank you so much! They always totally make my day. **

Caroline awoke the next morning to the sound of rain pounding on the roof and Klaus's voice saying, "It's morning and you're still here. You do like to keep me guessing."

Her eyes still stubbornly shut, she said, "There wasn't any one-day deal this time."

"So how long are you staying?"

Good question. "Indefinitely?" she said. She didn't see him, but she knew that Klaus was smiling.

Still half asleep, she tried to gather memories of last night. She remembered the kiss, of course she remembered that. But everything afterwards had been sort of a blur. Every time she cried—really cried like that, she felt unbelievably tired afterwards. Last night had been no exception. She vaguely remembered asking Klaus if they could go home—his home—and he agreed, saying something about how he couldn't believe how careless he was, parading all over town like this with Marcel after her…

She remembered the walk home, and stepping inside again, but once she had stretched out on the bed, everything else faded to black. All black—no dreams.

Memories mixed together as she slipped back in to sleep again, and woke up after another half hour, alone in Klaus's room. It was hard to tell what time it was. Even when the sun did come up, it couldn't be seen through the haze of storm clouds overhead. The rain was still coming down in torrents, creating the kind of soothing sound that made her want to stay sleeping all day.

But part of the reason why she wanted to keep sleeping wasn't just the rain or the warm bed or the exhaustion after yesterday. Part of it was that she didn't know what she was supposed to do today, or how she was supposed to act. Caroline had always been so sure of what she was doing and how she felt. Or at least she had been able to smile and fake her way through it. But she couldn't begin to figure this one out.

At about ten thirty she finally decided that she couldn't hide under the covers all day, and got up.

At least this time she wouldn't have to steal Rebekah's clothes. She wore a dark blue dress that just brushed the carpet underneath her feet, the kind she might have worn to the beach, if there was one. It was her way of saying, "Look, world. I'm not up for more fighting today. Okay?"

Klaus wasn't in the front room when she came out. She heard a few faint noises coming from down the second hallway and followed them to a kitchen. It looked barely used—like every vampire's kitchen, it was a little bit too neat and clean to look normal—but Klaus stood in front of the microwave, lazily watching whatever was in it rotate on its little table.

"You know you're not supposed to do that, stand right in front of the microwave," she said as she came in.

Klaus turned around, a quizzical expression on his face.

"My mom told me when I was little that it gives you brain damage or something," said Caroline. The words sounded so stupid coming out, but she'd been trying to start off avoiding any…difficult topics.

"I think my brain's as damaged as it's going to be," said Klaus. The timer beeped, and he took out a coffee mug full of warm blood.

He set it in front of her on the counter, saying, "I heard you get up. I thought you might be hungry."

"Oh. That's really…sweet of you." She looped a finger around the handle. It was weird. She always imagined Klaus as being waited on, not the other way around. In fact, she didn't think she could ever remember him doing anything for anybody else—not the little things, anyway. Not things that he wouldn't get some kind of reward for. She felt like crying again suddenly and she wasn't completely sure why. She pressed her hand to her forehead. _Get a hold of yourself. _

"Did you sleep well?" he asked.

The crying feeling passed as quickly as it had arrived. She took a stabilizing sip from the mug, then said, "Yeah. Good. Fine."

He nodded. She took another drink.

God, this felt strange. She didn't know how to talk to him without exchanging jabs, and after last night even that didn't feel right anymore.

Quickly, Caroline said, "So, any more news on the Marcel front?"

Klaus shook his head. "No. He's keeping quiet, more or less. But I still think it's best if you lay low for the time being."

"What about you?"

"I'm considering killing him today," Klaus said calmly.

Caroline thought he was joking for a moment, but then remembered who she was talking to. "What?"

He was already heading out of the kitchen, as if saying it out loud had decided it. "Yesterday was the last straw. He can't be allowed to continue this way. I won't risk you. I'm going to find him and end it."

"Whoa, whoa. Wait," Caroline followed him part of the way, mug still in her hand. "Have you thought about this?"

"I don't need to think, Caroline. I need to act."

That had always been his problem. Kill now and consider later. Well, that wasn't her way. Usually.

"Just stop for a second," she said.

He reluctantly turned around.

"Marcel has this big following around here, right? That's what you said?"

"Yes…"

"Really loyal. He calls them a family. So what do you think they'll do once they find out you've killed Marcel? Just…side with you?"

"I don't need their allegiance," said Klaus.

"Right, but…what do you think they'll do to me, if I'm just sitting around here waiting for you? They'll probably come and find me. They'll want revenge. You of all people should understand…"

She knew Klaus was seeing the flaw in his plan, but he still stubbornly said, "I can protect you."

"No, you can't. Not all the time. And I'd rather not have a 24/7 bodyguard, thanks."

Klaus still stood by the kitchen door, pausing as he tried to think of a way around this.

"I don't mind laying low for a while," she said. It was an understatement. She'd give _anything_ to lay low for a while. "But I have to, then so do you."

He considered this, tapping his fingers agitatedly on the kitchen counter. "Fine," he finally said.

"Good. Okay. We're staying in today," said Caroline. She jerked her head towards the window, which showed the rain coming down harder than ever outside. "Nice day for it."

Klaus gave her a smile that was more like a grimace. He was still trying to decide what to do about Marcel, but he stayed where he was, which meant he hadn't thought of anything.

Caroline felt a little bit glad about his preoccupation. At least it meant maybe she wouldn't have to talk about the kiss last night, that he would just write it off as a one-time, stress-induced mistake, like she was trying to do. But then—

"So, are we going to discuss the _other_ part of last night?" Klaus asked, after a long, drawn-out pause.

Damn it.

"Oh. Um," said Caroline, unable to look him in the eye. "Which part was that?"

Klaus gave her a "don't be stupid" sort of look.

"Right, that," she said. She'd managed to avoid the subject for all of three minutes. "Look, I hope you didn't get the wrong impression…"

She trailed off, hoping that he would interrupt her before she'd have to say "when I kissed you." He didn't, so she just left the thought unfinished.

"Oh? What wrong impression is that?" he asked.

She sighed, rubbed her forehead. He was not going to make this easy. "That…when I…you know, that it meant…"

Klaus didn't seem too disappointed. For the moment, he seemed to have forgotten all about Marcel, and he had a vaguely amused expression as his face as Caroline struggled to explain.

"I know what you're trying to say, love," he said, finally giving her a reprieve. "I just happen to think that my impression is the right one and yours is the one that needs re-examining."

He stepped out of the room then, leaving Caroline as she was about to argue.

XXX

The rain didn't let up all day. The sky outside was dark and drab, and inside wasn't any better. The air was heavy, stifling. Maybe it wasn't such a good day for staying in after all.

It was hours later, somewhere in the afternoon. It had been a tense morning in the apartment. The two of them had been pointedly silent since the morning, especially Caroline. Klaus, meanwhile, had been pacing around the place like a caged tiger, clearly thinking about all the different slow and interesting ways he _wasn't_ killing Marcel at the moment. He would sit across from the window in the front room for a while and start to sketch something, but every time he'd leave the drawing half finished and go off to some other room down the hall. Inevitably, in a few minutes, he would come back again and start the whole thing over.

Caroline was stretched out on the divan in the front room, staring in to space, picking up something to read, realizing she wasn't really seeing the words in front of her, setting it down, and then doing the same thing over again.

Every few minutes or so, when Klaus left the room, Caroline glanced at the sketchpad he let sit open on the floor. He hadn't been drawing her. Just still lifes. The angles of the window frames, the mist rising outside. But the inanimate world couldn't hold his interest long enough.

Slowly, his restlessness became so irritating that Caroline half wished he _had _gone out to kill somebody after all.

"Would you just stay put?" Caroline finally asked on possibly his eighth attempt at sitting down to draw something. He had just picked up his sketchbook again to start on a rendering of a pile of books in the corner. She set down the book she had been paging through— a paperback copy of _A Streetcar Named Desire_.

"Why? Am I making you nervous?"

"You're making me crazy, just watching you." Caroline said. She realized how that had sounded a few seconds too late, and wanted to kick herself.

Klaus smiled in a self-satisfied sort of way as he started on the new drawing. "Then stop watching me, Caroline."

Caroline let out an aggravated sigh and hid her face behind _A Streetcar Named Desire _again.

It was quiet for a few precious minutes while Klaus outlined the tower of books, started shading, and then got bored again and starting tapping his pencil on the chair in a distracted sort of way.

Caroline had thought Klaus might return to pacing, but he spoke up again, eyeing the book cover in front of her face. "Interesting choice. _'Don't you just love these long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn't just an hour—but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands—and who knows what to do with it?'_"

"What?"

"Oh, haven't you gotten to that part yet?"

Caroline sat up straight on the divan, setting down her book again with a _thwack_, and snapped, "Can't you find something to do?"

"Do you have any ideas?" he asked.

She sighed, looked dully around the room for inspiration. The painting hanging on the wall, the one she'd noticed the first time in the apartment, caught her eye.

"I don't know…paint something," she said.

His head slumped back in his chair. "I've tried that."

"And…?"

Klaus flipped the cover on his sketchbook closed. Another drawing half-finished. "It's just not coming to me. Not still lifes, or abstract—of anything…the only subject I can work with lately is you."

He said it with such matter-of-factness that it caught her by surprise. Caroline was only recently starting to recognize those rare times when Klaus said something without any agenda or manipulation. But this was one of them, and she couldn't help but be reminded of the things he'd told her last night, because he had said them in the exact same tone of voice that he used now. And in spite of herself, she felt some of her irritation with him melt away. She wished he hadn't said that. It was easier to be annoyed with him.

The tense, heavy air that had been driving her crazy all morning now suddenly seemed even more strained, if that was possible.

"Well, why don't you…" she said, after a pause, "Why don't you paint me?"

Klaus, who had been staring out the window, turned his head. Caroline took a strange kind of pleasure in seeing him so taken aback. "Well I don't—" he began, but then stopped again. "Paint you?"

He sounded so serious that Caroline felt like she had to laugh, play it off lightly. "Yeah. I mean, if there's nothing else to do. It could be fun. Being a _model_."

Klaus set his sketchbook down on the floor—didn't throw it, like had the other times. He looked at her with his head tilted to the side, considering. Caroline could see something taking shape in his mind. But he seemed like he was waiting for a catch, like he was being handed something very fragile that he expected to break or blow away if he moved too quickly. "All right," he said finally.

"Where do you want to—" Caroline began tentatively.

"Here," said Klaus. "I like the light in here." He stood up, holding out a hand as if he were asking her to stay. "I'll be right back."

She stayed put, sitting up straighter than normal, already wondering what she had gotten herself in to. When he came back a minute later, his arms were full of oil paints in different bottles, as many as he could carry.

They both busy for a few minutes—minutes that were quiet except for the rain and their footsteps going back and forth from what Caroline realized, when he led her there, was a small art studio, still only half unpacked, further down the hallway. (_How many rooms did this place have, anyway?_)

Once everything they could think of was in the front room, they began moving the furniture back against the walls, leaving the middle empty. The polished wood floor, now bare, made everything they said echo against the ceiling.

When they were finally finished, Caroline stood, self-conscious, in the center of the room, feeling once again that uncertainty she'd been worried about this morning. This was definitely new territory, and she had no idea what to say or do, or whether she should just tell him to forget the whole thing.

Klaus was setting up the canvas, facing away from the windows. He seemed completely absorbed in what he was doing, which Caroline guessed was the point.

"So…" she said, in a voice that sounded like it was trying too hard to be careless, "now what?"

"I don't know…" said Klaus absently. He was turning the lights in the chandeliers overhead on and off, trying to decide which way looked better.

"I mean, how do you want me? I mean—" God. Maybe it would be easier if she just didn't speak.

Klaus smiled to himself as he went to open the curtains which weren't already. He had decided to leave the chandeliers unlit. "Just stay there for a moment, while I adjust the light."

When he was done, the room was flooded in weak grayish sunlight filtered through streams of rain. Klaus stepped back to take in the scene—take in her. She stood with her hands clasped behind her back, blonde hair barely brushing her shoulders, eyes wide, unsure of what to do next.

Klaus stood with his arms folded, very still suddenly. He was giving her a look that she couldn't read. Sort of thoughtful, almost wistful. "Sometimes I forget how young you really are," he said, quietly enough that she wasn't sure whether she was supposed to have heard.

"What?"

He stepped a little closer. "You look like you're giving a speech to the class."

"Well, you're the artist, what do you want me to do?"

He considered for a moment, and then brought the divan back out in to the middle of the room, along with one of the small side tables. "Sit," he said.

She did, though it still felt a little strange letting Klaus tell her what to do—even tiny things like this. Her first instinct was still to contradict him at every turn. She told herself to let it go.

Klaus directed her in to a number of different positions before he picked one. Some sitting up, some lying down, some with her hands in her hair, some with them at her sides. She felt like a clay figurine, letting Klaus turn her head, guide her hands steadily with his own. After a while, she found that she didn't really care. There was something wonderfully mindless about it.

Caroline didn't know how long it had been going on—she'd stopped looking at the clock behind her some time ago—but they finally settled on a pose. He had her sitting on the divan, her legs curled underneath her, hidden by the ends of her dress. She was turned towards the window, gazing out in to the dark, misty air, one hand cupping her face.

"It's been a long time since I've done a portrait," he said thoughtfully. He was sketching her outline on the canvas in light pencil. "I mean, one that wasn't from memory."

Caroline wasn't sure how much she was supposed to move. She gave a slight nod to show she was listening.

"I used to be commissioned to do them all the time. Mostly Dukes and Lords, wanting to make their daughters seem more beautiful than they were. I did it more to pass the time than for anything else. I remember, while I was working, I used to ask them to tell me their life story."

"Really? Why?"

He paused, added a few more lines. "To make them sit still, I suppose. I wasn't going to tell them _my_ life story," he said.

Another silence, filled in only by the rain on the roof and the scratching of the pencil on canvas. It was sort of nice.

"You pretty much already know mine," said Caroline. "Small town cheerleader, then vampire. Blah blah blah."

"I don't think you're giving yourself quite enough credit there," said Klaus.

"Oh, right, I forgot. Mass murderer." She'd meant it lightly, as a joke, but saying the words out loud she wondered how anybody, including herself, could think that was funny. She felt the need to apologize, not to him, and not to herself, but…to somebody. "I'm sorry. God, I don't know what's wrong with me."

Klaus didn't answer at first, and Caroline thought he wasn't going to. She wasn't looking at him, so there was only the sound of the pencil moving again.

It wasn't until he put it down that he finally said something. "You know, Caroline, if it's guilt you're after, I'm not exactly the person to talk to."

"No, no," she said quickly, though she didn't know what she felt or what she wanted, if it wasn't to feel guilty. She deserved to feel guilty. "That wasn't it. That's not it."

He was quiet again for what felt like a long time. He had finished sketching, and started laying down a base coat of colors. Caroline wished she could see what he was doing, but all she had was the back of the canvas.

She was watching him work, watching him as he applied paint with an ease that only experts can achieve. It was so strange to think that he—with the same hands, the same mind—could twist someone's head off, drive a stake through someone's heart, without a second thought. And those were the same hands that had gently guided her through town, held her as she cried. It made no sense. He made no sense.

But then again, she could say the same about herself. The same person who had ripped out hearts and cut off heads was also the person who hugged her mother the next day and stood like she was 'giving a speech to the class.' Maybe she didn't make any sense, either.

She had time to think about this, too much time, as Klaus was silently working. She lost track of the minutes or maybe hours going by, wondering how long it had been raining now. Forever, it felt like.

After a while, Klaus set down the brush he had been holding and stepped toward her again. "You've moved a little," he said as he knelt down beside her, guiding her arm back to where it had been in the first place. She sat up straighter, realizing she had started to slouch. A piece of hair fell over her face and Klaus brushed it away.

He had been about to step back, return to the painting. But he seemed held there, and Caroline didn't move.

"I expect you're tired of hearing it," he said softly, "but you are unbelievably beautiful."

She turned her face from the window, about to say something. What she wanted to tell him not to say things like that, because it only made everything harder. But it was difficult to talk suddenly. Klaus had been adjusting her other arm, but once it was back in place he didn't move his hand away. He seemed almost unaware that he was tracing patterns on her wrist.

"Why would you let me do this, Caroline?" he asked.

"I…I don't know." She really didn't. It seemed like the strangest idea in the world now. Maybe she hadn't realized it would feel this…intimate. Or maybe she had realized it, and she just didn't care. His light touch felt electric on her skin. "I don't really know what I'm doing lately," she said. She came out of her pose completely, turning away from the dark sky outside.

Klaus didn't say anything. He had forgotten, at least for the moment, what he was doing, too. He was looking at her in a way she hadn't seen before, and she didn't know what it meant. He traced the outline of her jaw, let a hand run through her hair.

"Shouldn't I…get back in place?" said Caroline. He was very close—so close that whispering felt like the only way to speak. She wasn't sure if her voice would allow for anything else, anyway.

"In a minute…" Klaus murmured. His eyes flickered to her lips. There was a moment—more than a moment, when Caroline could have pulled away, or said something to make him stop. As little as he understood humanity, he knew enough to give her that chance. But she didn't take it.

His kiss was soft, at first, as it had been last night. But once he realized she wasn't going to pull away, it became urgent, insistent. He kissed her as if he might never get the chance again—as if she might leave, change her mind, at any second. Caroline understood that, but she didn't think she was going to change her mind. She didn't feel like she had any mind left to change.

She was filled up with a sensation that she only had distant memories of. Memories of when she had been young, and human. It was the sort of feeling that you lost when you became a vampire—too hard, too strong, too fearless. She was remembering summer days when she and her friends would beg their parents to take them to an amusement park. It was the feeling that she got at the highest part of the roller coaster, as it waited for a few agonizing seconds before plummeting. It was part terror, part joy—all exhilaration.

True, she didn't technically need to breathe, but she still felt the need to catch her breath when he finally drew back, their foreheads still together. Her hands were clutching the back of his neck, pulling him closer.

"What about…the painting?" Caroline gasped.

"Oh, who cares?" he replied, as their lips crashed together again.

She pulled him up on to the divan with her, finding that she agreed with him, for once.

There was something she almost admired about Klaus, though on a normal day she would never have admitted it. It was that he was always so sure of what he wanted. He wanted power. He wanted family. He wanted her. Right or wrong—wrong more often than not—he always knew.

If Caroline had asked herself a day ago, or even an hour ago, about the two of them, she would have said that she'd never been less sure of anything in her life. When she was human, the right thing to do had always seemed so clear. Maybe Klaus was right, and losing that was part of being what she was. But in this moment, with Klaus pulling aside the strap of her dress to trail kisses down her neck, morality seemed like a side note. She'd passed the point of no return now, and she'd have to see this—whatever it was—through to the end.


	8. Accord

**A/N: Not much to say about this one. La la, thanks for the favorites, follows, etc. **

Caroline was staring out the window of a spare room in the apartment, watching the rain over the watered down sunset slow down and finally, reluctantly stop. This room was bare, except for unopened, unmarked boxes, but she felt too preoccupied to be very curious about what was inside them. She'd broken away from Klaus just a little while ago, feeling breathless and dizzy and like she was watching herself, confused, from above somewhere. She thought she'd feel steadier now, but even after—what was it, fifteen minutes? Twenty minutes?—her head was still spinning.

He'd let her go, though he'd told her, only half joking, as she stood up, "Don't you dare come back with any more talk about wrong impressions…"

She wished she could step outside, take a walk, but each time she looked out in to the faded city there was that worry, that nagging uncertainty, that somebody might be looking back, waiting to catch her. But she couldn't stay cooped up in here forever.

The stupid thing was, she was homesick. As fast as she'd run away from home again, and as much of a relief it was being here—sort of—there was a part of her that wanted somebody besides Klaus to talk to about everything that was happening. Somebody to confide in without complications. But then again, that was why she had come back, wasn't it? Because there was nobody else.

Caroline had been stuck thinking about the people back home, so much so that when she heard a faint knock on the front door of the apartment, her first, jumbled thought was, "Oh, they're here."

She heard the door outside open, but no voices. Weird.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped back out in to the front room.

Klaus had put some of the furniture back in its place in her absence, though the canvas was still there—painting unfinished. Maybe it would have to stay that way, now that the light had changed and the sun was making one too-little-too-late-appearance before it disappeared on the horizon.

But the other reason why the painting would have to be left for now was written on Klaus's face. He stood by the still open door, a small tissue-paper note clutched in his hand.

"Who was it?" Caroline asked.

Klaus folded the note up. "Oh, nothing," he said. "Paper man."

Caroline narrowed her eyes. She'd seen the look on his face. She stepped closer, wanting to see the note. "No, it wasn't. Come on."

He held the paper behind his back. "No, honestly, it's nothing to concern yourself with…" With the hand that wasn't hiding the note, he cupped her face. "I want to finish the painting, or maybe _not_ finish it…"

She moved closer, made it seem as if she was agreeing—and then took the opportunity to grab the note from behind his back and skitter to the other side of the room with it. Klaus made a half-hearted attempt to stop her, but then sighed as if to say, "If you must…"

The note read:

_Mon ami—_

_I think we can both agree that this little feud of ours seems to have gotten out of hand. I don't want any more bad blood between us, brother, and I'll be the one to extend the olive branch. If you accept my offer, be at the foot of Canal Street at midnight. And please bring along your lovely Caroline. We'll want to get to know her, if you and she are going to become part of the family. _

_-Marcel _

Caroline read the note over twice, and then looked up. "This is…" she started.

"Pathetic and desperate," said Klaus calmly. "And a little insulting, really."

"He just left this?" Caroline asked, turning the paper over. There was no address or even a name.

"One of his _boys_, probably. Knocked on the door and then ran."

"It says that I have to come along, too," said Caroline.

"Yes," said Klaus, warily. "You're not honestly considering this, are you?"

"Well, I don't know…" she said.

"Caroline, he just wants to lure you outside so he can ambush us and have his revenge, that's all."

She read the note again, thinking. "I guess. But…but if it were only a trap, wouldn't he…I don't know. Seem like he was giving up?"

Klaus gave her a curious look.

She went on: "He talks about welcoming us in to his family. I mean, why would he do that if he wasn't serious? He knows it's not something you want, and it's probably not what he wants, either. He probably knows you'd be more likely to show your face if it means you've won than to…agree to a truce. But that's still what he's asking."

"So?"

"So…isn't it possible that he is serious?"

He folded his arms. "Love, I've known Marcel longer than you have. I _taught _him. If he's anything like me, he's not interested in a truce."

If Caroline had cared less about Klaus's feelings now, she might have stated the obvious: That Marcel was _not_ like Klaus in at least one key point: he had a family that cared about him and who he wanted to take care of. Klaus was probably all too aware of that already.

Instead, she said, "So, you're just going to ignore this?"

"What do you think?"

Caroline sighed. "I think I want to be able to go outside at some point."

Klaus's gaze drifted over to the half-finished painting still standing opposite the window. Caroline hadn't had a chance to look at it before. There wasn't much to see now. It was just shapeless layers of color. She recognized the color of her dress starting to take shape, her hair, the grayish rain-soaked light. He seemed reluctant to let it go, even though just this morning he'd been itching to take action against Marcel.

"We could finish it later," said Caroline quietly. It was a suggestion, a reassurance, a reminder.

He paused. He wanted to smile at that, say something, but instead he stopped himself and said, "It's still too dangerous for you. If I were to go—which I'm not saying I am—I would go alone."

"It says to bring me, doesn't it? If it is a truce, you should start by agreeing to what he asks," said Caroline. It felt good to be giving advice (okay, bossing people around) again, although this subject was far off from her usual wheel house: winter formal decorations and low-calorie cocktails. Still, it made her feel more like herself amidst all the un-Caroline things she was doing lately. "Couldn't I…I don't know, wear an arrow-proof vest or something?"

Klaus laughed humorlessly, thinking. "Not exactly…but maybe it's time to enlist the help of our new allies."

"The witches? Like a protection spell or something?"

He nodded.

"If it's another pile of chicken bones, count me out. A lot of good it did me yesterday," said Caroline.

"That spell could be the reason the arrow missed your heart, had you considered that?"

"Oh," said Caroline. She hadn't, and it didn't exactly make her feel better.

"It could be a good idea," said Klaus, his mind already three steps ahead. "I'll make a call."

XXX

It was near eleven by the time their witch arrived, hair disheveled and carrying a carpet bag full of ingredients. It was the woman who Caroline had met the other day—Klaus called her Inez as he opened the door for her and she dropped her bag on the floor.

"We'll have to work fast," she said, not bothering with hellos, "If you must leave before midnight."

She busied herself with spreading salt in a circle on the floor and placing white candles all around the room. Caroline closed the curtains over the windows. With Marcel around, magic was still technically taboo. And while neither Inez nor the two of them cared about Marcel's rules, they all agreed it wasn't smart to draw attention to the fact that they were being broken.

While Inez worked on her circle, Caroline joined Klaus in the corner and asked, under her breath, "Did you tell her about the meeting?"

Klaus shook his head, and answered just as quietly, "I'm not sure how the witches would take it. They're only on my side—our side—because they want to see Marcel gone."

Caroline nodded. She understood, though she was wary. If they did manage to strike a deal with Marcel, the witches were bound to find out, which they probably wouldn't take well. She'd seen what witches could do when they were pissed off, and she didn't want to be on the receiving end of it.

But there were only forty-five minutes until midnight, and this was their only idea.

"Step in to the circle, please," said Inez, leading Caroline by the hands in to the circle of salt.

"What will this do, exactly?" Klaus asked.

"Well," said Inez, as she lit the candles, "it should create a kind of invisible armor. Able to block a heavy blow or a bullet. But I can't make it last for more than a few hours."

Caroline stood patiently in the circle while Inez circled around chanting in Latin and tossing rosemary in the air. Klaus watched over the process with a vaguely bored look on his face.

When the candles flared and went out and Inez snapped her head up to look at them again, it was clear the spell was over.

"Did it work?" Caroline asked. She didn't feel any different.

"Only one way to find out," Inez replied, and from out of her carpet bag she drew a tiny dagger, which she aimed at Caroline.

Caroline barely had time to say, "Hey! Wait—" before Inez cut in to her arm with the blade. Except she didn't—instead of hitting her arm, the blade stopped about an inch short of her skin and bent as if it had been driven in to an invisible concrete wall. Her arm was untouched.

"Huh," said Caroline. "That's kinda cool." She looked over at the clock on the wall. 11:45.

"We've gotta go," she said, stepping out of the salt circle. She gave Inez a nod. "Thank you."

"Good luck to you," was all she said as Klaus and Caroline headed out the door, leaving her to let herself out.

XXX

That afternoon had felt like a dream, before the arrival of Marcel's note had jolted everything back to reality. That night, as they made their way carefully and silently through the shadowy New Orleans streets, felt like a different kind of dream—the kind Caroline had, when she felt like something huge and dark was chasing her.

"This was your idea," Klaus reminded her, when he saw the look on her face as they rounded a sharp, darkened corner.

"I still say I'm right," she said.

"Well, if you're wrong, at least you won't be dead," said Klaus. "But you'll still owe me."

"Owe you what?"

A flicker of a smile crossed his face. "I'll have to think about that."

They came to the foot of Canal Street. It was a mostly empty lot, with a small strip of a pier jutting out on to the Mississippi river. Nobody was there. Caroline checked her phone. It was 11:58.

"Well, this looks…creepy," she said, her stomach sinking. This was seeming more and more like a setup with every passing second. Maybe she had been stupid to give her opinion. Maybe she'd wanted too badly to be outside for a while. After all, Klaus _did_ know Marcel much better than she did…

Caroline's pulse started to race as she imagined a surprise attack—not because she was afraid of being hurt, but because she didn't know what she would do, whether she'd be able to get away without hurting anybody else, or whether she would even want to when she was back in that moment. This had been a stupid, stupid idea—

She'd been about to say they should turn back, but she stayed quiet once she turned back around to face the harbor. Out of the foggy night air something was appearing on the water, gliding gently. It grew nearer, and she realized it was a boat. It was white and shining, strung with lights, crowded with people, and blaring with music. Caroline didn't see how she could have missed it a few minutes ago. It lit up the empty lot as it came to a stop at the end of the pier.

Klaus and Caroline came to the river's edge as a figure stepped off the boat. As they came closer, they saw that it was Marcel. He greeted them with—literally—open arms.

"My friends," he said, "I'm so glad to see you here."

Caroline looked over at Klaus. She hadn't been expecting this, and she needed to know what Marcel was playing at here. But whatever Klaus was thinking he kept concealed behind a bland expression.

"Lovely boat," he said mildly.

"Isn't it? We sometimes like to take the Algiers ferry for a little joyride at night. Shall we?" he extended his hand to help Caroline on to the boat's platform.

She hesitated, just for a second. She didn't love the idea of being trapped on this thing, unable to leave unless she dove in to the river. But she had been the one who had wanted the truce, and if this was what she had to do…

She gave Marcel her hand and stepped on to the ferry, Klaus following closely behind.

They were greeted with a cheer from the crowd and raised glasses of champagne as they stepped on board. Caroline looked out at them all, her chest feeling tense. This was…definitely not what she had been expecting. This felt all wrong.

Any second now, they had to start attacking—but the seconds kept passing by, and they didn't.

The boat started gliding away from shore again as Marcel smiled warmly at them. "You made it. I worried, sending that note so last-minute. But you know, I got to thinking today and I realized…well, we can talk about it later. You just got here! Come on in, enjoy the view!"

He gestured out at the New Orleans coastline, quickly becoming smaller as the ferry settled in the middle of the river. Caroline had to admit, it was pretty. The city was lit up and sparkling and seemed so quiet from this far away.

Marcel had ducked away, answering somebody else's call, and left the two of them looking out over the railing.

"Is this for real?" Caroline asked quietly, glad that the music—coming from the other end of the ferry—could drown out the sound of their voices somewhat. She tried to keep smiling, as if they were talking about the view or the party."I mean…after what we did to their…this can't be for real."

Klaus shook his head slightly. "He's covering something. I just don't know what exactly."

"Do you think he's planning something? …An attack?"

"Maybe…but why wait? If he was going to try and kill us, he's already had several good opportunities."

A server came by and offered the two of them glasses of champagne. Klaus shook his head. Caroline took a glass but had no intention of drinking from it. She just thought she might look more at ease holding something. The tension in the air plus the rocking waves were starting to make her feel a little queasy.

"I think I'll go walk around," she told Klaus.

He held on to her arm as she backed away, unsure he wanted to risk her, even with the spell.

"I'll be fine," Caroline said, sounding much more sure than she was. He gave a resigned nod and let go of her.

She made a circle around the ferry's deck. If she wasn't worried about being surrounded by people who had every right to want her dead, she might have thought this was fun. The night was warm and balmy after the rain and people stood up to dance or sat in cozy little circles to laugh and talk. Caroline had never quite believed Marcel when he called these people his family—she had been sure that what he'd meant was his lackeys, his servants, even. But this…this looked like a family. Which only made the pit of guilt in her stomach deeper. These people cared about each other. And they cared about Marcel. She had to remind herself that Marcel had made the first move that night weeks ago, attacked without warning, and with the two of them outnumbered. Otherwise she might start to forget who was really the bad guy here.

She came to a stop on the opposite end of the boat and leaned on the railing, watching the water rush by underneath her. It was sort of hypnotic. So much so that she didn't notice Marcel standing beside her until he spoke.

"You can see why they call it the Crescent city, when you're out here. See how the shoreline curves?"

"It's pretty," said Caroline. Her stomach tightened when she realized he was there. _Just stay calm, stay calm…_

"It has its problems, New Orleans, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

She didn't say anything, couldn't think of anything to say to him. She wished, suddenly and desperately, that Klaus were here.

"So, I'd expect you have some questions about all this," said Marcel.

"It's…not what I was expecting," she said carefully. "I mean, the party and everything. I'm all for calling the big fight off, I really am—" She paused. She wanted, really, to say 'I'm sorry' about what had happened the last time she and Marcel had met, but the words seemed so inadequate.

"I just can't resist a little spectacle sometimes," said Marcel, gesturing back towards the music and the lights.

"It's just—being here with your family…" Caroline said. "I don't understand how you can expect us to be …friends. After what I…I mean, after what happened."

He looked at her as if she was a vaguely interesting TV show. "You feel guilt about what you did? Even though I attacked you first?"

"Well, yeah," she said. Shouldn't it be obvious?

"You're something else," he said, laughing. "You and Niklaus Mikaelson. Talk about an odd couple."

She had a slight feeling that she was being insulted, but she couldn't see how exactly. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing, nothing. I just…if after ten centuries he manages to find some kind of moral compass, well…that would be something to see." Marcel smiled, looking out at the water. "And who knows? Maybe thanks to you, he is ready to be part of the family."

It felt so odd to be standing beside somebody who had tried to kill her a few weeks ago, talking pleasantly. But then again, it wasn't too long ago that Klaus had tried to kill her and all her friends, and now…well, that was a whole other issue.

Marcel stayed for a while, looking contentedly out at the view. When he decided to rejoin the party, he grasped her hand in a friendly, familiar sort of way first, and said, "It's been a pleasure, Miss Forbes."

Caroline stayed, leaning against the railing, thinking. This all made no sense. It was too easy, too uncomplicated. And it wasn't really what Klaus wanted—was it?

If it was a choice between keeping her safe in this city and ruling it, she honestly didn't know which he would pick. If he agreed to the truce, they both would be able to walk the streets again. But it would only be because Marcel had decided to let them live. If he didn't agree, he would still have a shot at being 'king', but they might have to face an attack right now—while they were out in the middle of the river surrounded by Marcel's clan.

She took her hands off the railing again, weaving past crowds of people to find Klaus. It looked like he had been coming to find her, too, because they met somewhere in the middle.

"I saw you talking to Marcel. What did he do?"

Caroline shrugged. "Nothing. He was…friendly."

Klaus gave a contemptuous laugh. "Yes, that is what he's known for."

"It seems like he really means it."

"He's desperate," said Klaus, lowering his voice. "He knows he can't win, so he wants to be friends instead."

"So? Is that so bad?" Caroline asked.

Klaus gave her a look that she couldn't read. He seemed to be considering what she said. The more Caroline thought about it, the more it amazed her, his quiet consideration. Maybe Marcel was right, and she was having more of an influence on him than she'd thought.

"No," he finally said. "No, it's not so bad."

He glanced over at Marcel, who was in the middle of a large group, animatedly telling a story that had all of them laughing. As if to say thank you, or just because he wanted to, Klaus grasped Caroline's hand and raised it to his lips. Then, letting go, he approached Marcel.

It was funny, how quickly it happened. Caroline watched them talking from a few yards away, unable to hear exactly what they were saying because of the music still blaring from corners of the ferry. Both of them looked serious, whatever they were discussing, until the end, when Marcel smiled warmly and Klaus returned his smile and the two of them shook hands.

Caroline watched them, stunned. Did this mean—

Another server was coming by, handing the two of them fresh glasses of champagne. Klaus took one this time as Marcel made his toast to the crowd—"To family".

Klaus raised his glass, good-natured smile plastered on his face, but Caroline couldn't help but notice that he set the glass down again without ever taking a drink.


	9. Pause

**A/N: Blurg. So two things. Actually three, if I'm counting usual thanks for the follows and favorites. (Yes. Thank you!) The first thing is that, in case you're wondering, I'm planning on having about twelve chapters in this story. Or maybe eleven. But probably twelve. The second thing is that school is starting again for me, so I honestly have no idea what that'll do to my whole writing schedule. I apologize in advance if it's weird, which it probably will be. My goal is to finish this story before TVD and The Originals are on the air again in October. **

It didn't take too long before Caroline started having dreams again.

There was one that showed up night after night, and it started with Elena. They were in the high school gym, the floor littered with paper cups, the scoreboard on the wall flashing. Caroline heard the click of her high-heeled boots as she weaved around the cups toward the center of the court. Elena sat there, crying in to her hands, illuminated in red by the scoreboard lights.

"What is it?"

Elena couldn't speak, only continued to sob, her hands covering her face. Caroline stepped forward, slowly realizing that the red wasn't just from the light—there was a gaping wound in Elena's neck, blood running down her side, staining her shirt and her hands.

"Oh my God…" she ran over to her. "What happened?"

Elena shook her head, still hiding her face from view. Caroline was starting to panic. She didn't know what to do, or what had caused this, or if whatever it was was still here, hiding in the shadows…

Why couldn't Elena just tell her? Caroline grabbed her face, forcing Elena to look at her. "Just tell me what happened, what was it…"

But when she finally showed her face, it wasn't Elena after all. Her neck cracked as Caroline turned it, and the face she saw turn pale was Jenna's. Her eyes were glassy and distant, and she slumped on the floor. Dead.

"Oh God…" Caroline backed away. She tripped over the cups on the floor that she'd thought were full of water. As she fell to the ground and felt the liquid run over her hands, she saw that it was blood, all of it was blood, in little paper cups…

She was running now, had to get out of the gym, had to get out—

But somebody was standing in her way. It was Stefan, his eyes empty and cold. "Have you forgotten?" he asked her. "Have you forgotten?"

And that was always the last thing she remembered.

The fragments of the dream always floated away in the early morning sunlight, smothered by Klaus's hands.

XXX

Summer felt like it was flying by, although everything felt like summer in New Orleans. She had spent only a few weeks here with Klaus—what was a few? Three or four or six? It was hard to keep track—but she would pass by a shop selling school notebooks and folders or catch a glimpse of the date on her cell phone which she hardly checked anymore and be reminded that the real world, with time passing and leaves changing, still existed somewhere out there.

She'd told her mother, hastily throwing clothes in to her suitcase, that she was going to Mexico. "You said I should travel more, right? Well, this is my last chance before college…" She'd said that there was no cell phone service, and not to bother calling. When she finally came back, she'd also have to think of a reason why there weren't any pictures or souvenirs.

She'd told Klaus about that, and he'd laughed, saying that she wasn't missing much, staying away from Mexico, and wasn't it so much better here? Obviously he'd started thinking about the fall, too.

There was time to worry about things like that, now that their situation with Marcel was quiet again. Even the witches were quiet. At first it had unnerved her. It had seemed too easy, too sudden, and she still looked over her shoulder whenever she went outside for the first week or so after the party. The deal Klaus had struck was simple: Marcel wouldn't hurt Caroline—or any of the Originals, if they ever decided to show their faces—and in exchange, Klaus wouldn't hurt Marcel or any of his clan.

"So, win-win, right?" Caroline had said.

"Right," said Klaus, although he wouldn't look her in the eye.

XXX

In the quiet, Klaus finished the painting of Caroline. The light was never the same after that particular rainy day, but Klaus had something like a photographic memory, at least when it came to her.

Caroline stepped in to the front room one day and it was just done, without any announcement or celebration. Klaus wasn't even in the room when she saw it. She stood there still, taking it in.

He had made her beautiful, that was a given. She recognized the girl in the painting as herself, but also, at the same time…not herself. Or maybe _more_ herself. The girl, looking off in to the distance with a faint smile playing on her lips, radiated warm light in the cold grey atmosphere. She was Caroline the way he saw her: a light in the darkness.

She'd gone to find him, to tell him how much she loved the painting, but when she was standing in front of him, she couldn't seem to say anything. The word 'love' got stuck in her throat, and she couldn't think of a combination of words that would express what she wanted to.

That was a difference between them: between human Caroline and the person she was now. The human, younger version of Caroline was always desperate to say something, even if it was something she probably shouldn't have said. The new Caroline knew that there were some things you couldn't say with words.

She'd imagined sleeping with him, more and more since they'd kissed, though she'd been trying not to in the midst of everything. She hadn't exactly planned on it, but she hadn't exactly not, either. And though she'd wanted it to happen, with his temper and history and ages of experience the idea was also a little…intimidating.

But he had surprised her. He undressed her slowly, so much so that she was on the point of begging him to, god, just do it already. She was used to high school boys, who were frantic and needy and fast. Klaus was none of those things. He seemed awed by her, taking the same care he would—and did—with a work of art. What she remembered most from that afternoon was the soft purple light and Klaus's skillful hands and him saying over and over again, "I love you, I love you" and not expecting her to say it back.

Caroline fell asleep in his arms that night and awoke the next morning with the memory of that dream, hearing those words for the first time: "_Have you forgotten?" _

XXX

"I need to do something," Klaus announced suddenly one afternoon. "About this whole Marcel situation."

It might have seemed out of the blue, if Caroline hadn't been paying attention. She'd noticed the looks Klaus gave Marcel's clan whenever he saw them out walking. She'd been all too aware, just as he was, that, yes, they weren't technically fighting anymore, but it was still two against however many and those weren't the kind of odds that Klaus liked to play. And he wasn't the type to keep underground.

"It's just a problem of numbers, really," he said, and he was half talking to Caroline, who was listening from the next room, and half thinking aloud. "I just need more people, that's all."

"Hasn't that always been your problem?" Caroline asked. She was in the bathroom, putting a curling iron to her hair in a lazy, experimental kind of way. The days were boring lately. She was getting used to Klaus's schedule, and he liked to be out at night.

He laughed softly. "Yes, I suppose so."

"What about Elijah or Rebekah? I thought they were supposed to come with you."

Klaus came to stand at the doorway, watching her work. "They're not exactly reliable," he said.

"Well, who else, then?" she asked, setting the curling iron down on the counter.

He ran his fingers absent-mindedly through her newly formed curls. Caroline's hair was stubborn and liked to be straight and settled in to a soft wave under his hands. She had been trying to concentrate on planning, Marcel, needing more people…but, god, it was difficult to concentrate these days when he touched her. She closed her eyes. "I don't know," he said. "Why don't we go find out?"

XXX

Over the past few weeks, the two of them settled in to what Caroline almost could have called a domestic routine, though it sounded funny to say. They both slept late, and spent the late afternoon and evening out somewhere in the city. Caroline was sure that at some point Klaus would run out of places to show her, restaurants to take her to, galleries and parks and bars and late night jazz clubs where they danced close and she shivered as he whispered in her ear everything he wanted to do with her when they got back home. But though she still liked to tease him for being an encyclopedia of the city, she wasn't hoping for him to stop any time soon.

On this evening, though, Klaus wasn't exactly thinking of sight-seeing. As they swept through the streets, he had his eyes set on people passing by—though he also scanned corners and building tops for Marcel's boys. He still suspected, and Caroline couldn't blame him, that Marcel was keeping tabs on them both.

"So, what are we looking for exactly?" she asked.

"I'll know it when I see it," Klaus answered cryptically.

They weaved past people on the streets until they came to Chartres Street. It was a side of New Orleans that Caroline didn't often see with Klaus, who was used to fine, expensive things. A line of dive bars and strip clubs dotted the street, just now starting to let in patrons dressed in tank tops and painted gold jewelry.

"Seriously, Klaus, enough with the mystery. What are we doing here?"

He turned back, scanning the crowd again for anybody he might have seen with Marcel. He must not have seen anybody, because he lowered his voice and said, "We're looking for people. Humans." He smiled. "Recruits."

"What?"

"Look, if it comes down to me and Marcel, the fact is, the two of us aren't enough against his family. I need to have more people on my side. And they have to be strong…"

"So, they have to be vampires." Caroline finished the thought for him.

"Exactly."

This gave Caroline a small uneasy feeling, and she couldn't explain why until she started to actually say it: "So, you're just going to take random people off the street and turn them? What if they don't want to be vampires?"

"It seemed to work out fairly well in your case," Klaus said mildly. "Look, why do you think we're here? We're finding people who don't have much of a life and giving them a new one. It's a…public service, isn't it? I started doing it before you came here—you remember the girl who answered the door when you first arrived?—and I didn't hear any complaints."

"So," said Caroline, holding on tight to her disapproval, though she knew she would probably give it up eventually, "You just assume everybody on this street has no life?"

"Of course not," he said. He took her hand, jerking his head toward the sign above a small place on the corner called The Gold Mine. "Come on. I'll show you."

He led her inside. The whole place was very un-Klaus. It was brick wall on all sides—cramped, dark, and noisy. Instead of a band, there was one man in the corner playing slightly out of tune guitar, though it was hard to see because he was surrounded by people milling around, dancing unenthusiastically, or taking shots of tequila from the bar. They took their seats at a table against the wall, and Klaus told her to keep an eye out for anybody drinking alone. Caroline did, reluctantly.

People came and went as the night wore on, mostly in large, loud groups, and Caroline kept leaning over to Klaus to ask, "Shouldn't we try somewhere else?" Every time he shook his head and touched her arm in a way that meant, "Just be patient."

They waited a while longer until Caroline spotted a man alone in the corner. He was young, probably in college. He had small, delicate features and wore a button-down shirt which looked overly formal in this environment. He was hunched over with a glass of vodka and a copy of _The Stranger_. Caroline tapped Klaus and nodded towards the man. Klaus looked over, and then back at Caroline, smiling approvingly.

"Well spotted," he said. "I think I'll go say hello." Klaus got up and approached the man. Caroline pretended to be looking at the wine list on her table, but really she was listening in to what he was starting to say from a few feet over.

The man didn't look up until Klaus pulled an empty chair back and said, "Mind if I join you?"

He gave Klaus a wary look, but said, "Okay."

Klaus sat down. "So, what's your name?" he asked.

"Jamie."

"Nice to meet you, Jamie, I'm Nik," said Klaus genially. "What's that you're reading?"

Jamie seemed like he was reluctant to be interrupted, but he showed Klaus the cover of his book.

"_The Stranger_. Bit dark, isn't it?"

Jamie shrugged.

"So why is it you come here to read? There must be quieter places…"

Jamie held up his hands, defensive. "Look, man, if you want the table you can just ask, but I'm allowed to be here—"

Klaus didn't seem perturbed. "I'm not asking you to leave. I was only curious," he said.

Jamie eyed him, and didn't let down his guard entirely. Still, he said, "I don't know…I like the company, I guess."

"So, tell me," said Klaus—and though Caroline couldn't see, she guessed he was using compulsion, to make the whole thing go quicker—"What brings you to New Orleans?"

"My girlfriend and I came here after graduation. But she…we broke up, and now I don't know what to do with myself. I can't find a job, and I'm pretty much stuck here."

"Feeling lost? Tell me the truth."

"Yes," said Jamie.

Klaus glanced quickly over at Caroline's table as if to say, "satisfied?" She gave a tiny, grudging nod, and he turned back around to face Jamie.

"Well, isn't today your lucky day, then."

XXX

Jamie wasn't upset to be turned in to a vampire, or even to drink human blood. Though Caroline wasn't sure whether or not that was because Klaus was still compelling him. It was almost dawn by the time the whole thing was done, and Klaus told Jamie to go back home and wait to hear from him.

For the next few nights, the two of them repeated the process, each time in a different place so as not to arouse suspicion: find somebody lonely, find somewhere quiet, and turn them. A middle-aged tourist with a fanny pack full of collected postcards; a teenager on permanent spring break; a young divorcee lost in a bottle of bourbon.

It was sort of exciting, in a strange way, but Caroline still had an uneasy feeling. She pushed it away night after night. She was getting tired of feeling guilty, and of trying to figure out exactly what Klaus was planning. It was easier to just go along.

XXX

She was in the gym again, in the scene that was becoming all too familiar. Elena sobbing on the floor, the little paper cups full of blood, and her running as if she was being chased, trying to get out. She'd had the dream countless times by now, but every time the panic felt brand new. This time it wasn't Stefan who stopped her. Of all people, it was Mrs. Lockwood, her skin bloated, drenched in water.

"Have you forgotten?" she asked.

Caroline woke up to a pounding that she'd thought was the sound of her shoes on the linoleum, but was actually somebody knocking at the door. She was out of breath, disoriented. She wondered who would be knocking in the middle of the night, then realized it was actually eleven in the morning. All these late-night trips were turning her in to a real nocturnal vampire.

Klaus was missing beside her. He must have heard it first. Caroline leapt out of bed, going through a mental list of people who would be knocking at Klaus's door and not liking the options at all.

But stepping in to the front room, she saw Klaus open the door—and Elijah stood behind it.

He had been about to say hello, but instead he took in the scene in front of him: Caroline, standing in the background, wearing a shirt of Klaus's that she'd been sleeping in, the painting of her still set up on the other side of the room, and Klaus holding the door open, looking like he'd had the wind knocked out of him.

"God," said Elijah. "What have you two gotten yourselves in to?"


	10. Trust

**A/N: Long wait! Sorry guys. School sucks. And, to be honest, I've also been kind of putting off posting these last few chapters because I know some people won't like the way this ends. Or, who knows, maybe people will love it. But either way, it's what I wanted to do from the beginning so I'm sticking to my guns. Also, if it's any consolation, chapter 11 shouldn't be too long coming—I'm almost finished with it now. Thanks for your patience, and, as always, for all the follows, favorites and reviews. **

Elijah stood still in the doorway with an unreadable expression on his face, the words he had just spoken reverberating around the still apartment, until Klaus finally, grudgingly, gestured for him to come in.

"Nice place you have here, Niklaus. Very understated, for you," said Elijah as he stepped inside.

"What are you doing here?" Klaus asked curtly.

"Aren't you pleasant. I thought you asked me to come," said Elijah. He nodded towards Caroline, who was still standing, statue-still, at the edge of the hallway and the front room. "Hello, Caroline."

"I did," said Klaus, grimacing. "But it's been a few months since then and I was taking your silence to mean that you had declined."

Elijah paused for only a moment, still seeming to be a little puzzled by Caroline's presence. "Well, you know what they say about when you assume things…" Another beat. "Am I interrupting something?"

"No, no," Caroline said hurriedly, and the both of them turned as if they hadn't been expecting her to speak. "No interrupting. But uh…what did you mean when you said 'what have we gotten ourselves in to'?"

Elijah addressed Klaus when he answered, "I meant the reason I came. I was contacted by a coven of Deveraux witches—which by itself was surprising—asking if I would please come and _help my brother keep a level head_ about this whole business. They didn't tell me specifically what had happened and to be honest, I didn't really want to know. But here we are."

"I'm not so sure," said Klaus coldly, "if this is any of your affair."

Elijah didn't seem the least bit bothered by his brother's tone. He was probably used to it. "That's what I said to the witches, but they seemed to think it was."

Klaus sighed, rubbed his forehead, and said under his breath, "Of all the days for you to pick…"

Caroline had been about to ask why, what was so special about today, but Elijah cut in first. "Look, just tell me what you've been planning. If it's not insane, I promise to stay out of it."

Klaus paced the room before sitting down on the divan, facing away from Elijah, his head in his hands. Caroline wished she could see his expression.

She didn't know why he was so bothered by Elijah's presence. She'd thought the whole idea was supposed to be having more people on his side. But Klaus had such a complicated relationship with his family, it was hard to guess from day to say whether they would greet each other with a handshake or a knife in the back.

Maybe Klaus was deciding which one would be most appropriate at the moment. Whatever it was, he seemed deep in thought until he finally brought his head up again.

"Fine," he said. "Fine."

He glanced over at Caroline, an unfathomable expression on his face. "But not right now, all right? There's something I have to do."

"Oh?" said Elijah, skeptical.

Klaus stood up again. "I have to—"he looked over to Caroline again. "I'd like to check on Lily."

Caroline nodded. Lily was one of their most recent vampire recruits—a small, bony woman in her twenties with circles under her eyes and a shaky voice.

"Should I come with you?" Caroline asked, still hesitating on the edge of the room.

"No, no. It won't take long." He was already heading for the door, determinedly not looking at either of them. "I'll be back soon, and then you—" he nodded towards Elijah "—can interrogate me all you want."

And with that, he was gone.

There was a strange sort of stillness in the room again, now that Klaus was absent, and Elijah turned, with an exasperated air, to Caroline. "Niklaus is perpetually four years old," he remarked. "I doubt he has anything so important to do, but he wants to avoid a conversation. I don't suppose you'd be so good as to explain what it is he's been doing?"

Caroline glanced over at the door as if willing Klaus to come back through it. The idea of telling Elijah everything seemed like a violation of trust, although she couldn't see why or what harm it would do. Klaus had technically promised that he would tell Elijah eventually, and he hadn't given Caroline any sign to let her know that he wasn't telling the truth about that.

"Um…okay," she said finally. "Just—can I change first?"

XXX

When she came back out again, Elijah was examining her painting in the corner. She wished he wouldn't. It made her feel so exposed somehow.

She cleared her throat, forcing him to look up.

"Oh—" he said, noticing her. "It's very, ah…"

"Could we not talk about it?" Caroline asked, before he could say anything about the painting, or anything else.

He straightened up, shrugged. "Fair enough."

She gestured over to a couple of chairs, sitting across from the divan. Elijah followed her lead and sat.

Caroline had been all ready to launch in to an explanation of everything (well, almost everything) that had happened. But something was bothering her, and the words were out of her mouth before she could give them any thought: "Was that what you meant? When you first came in?" she pointed at the painting.

"What?" Elijah turned in his seat to look at it again. "I thought we weren't talking about it."

"I changed my mind," she said, with such Caroline-trademarked authority that she almost wanted to laugh at herself in the moment after she'd said it.

"I…" said Elijah, who seemed a little startled. "I suppose I noticed it, and…the two of you, and it seemed a bit….surprising."

"Why?" She was sounding defensive, and she couldn't help it. Of course she knew perfectly why anybody would be surprised by them. Hell, it didn't make any sense to her, either. But it was so strange to have anybody else, anybody from Mystic Falls, having an opinion about it. When she was with Klaus, sometimes it sort of felt like being in a vacuum. Like the rest of the world just fell away.

"Well…the last time we were all in town, it seemed as though you would rather see him dead," said Elijah.

Caroline sat down. There was a time, she knew, when she—and all her friends—had wanted to kill him. And with good reason. But it all felt so far away now, it was almost hard to remember. "Things change," she said.

"Apparently."

There was something facetious in his tone of voice, something that suggested there was more he wanted to say that he held back for the sake of politeness. Caroline hated that, she hated false friendliness, even though she'd been known to be guilty of it herself. Maybe it was residue from her days in middle school and high school, when her world revolved around gossip and backhanded compliments.

"So, what are you doing here? Last I heard you were taking care of Katherine and now suddenly you have all this free time to babysit your brother?"

Elijah stood up. "Would you like a drink? I think I'll have one."

"Hmm. Evasive," said Caroline.

Elijah smiled grimly to himself as he poured two glasses. "Maybe it runs in the family." When he sat down again and handed Caroline a glass—it was bourbon, not exactly her favorite—he finally said, "She didn't want to be taken care of anymore."

"Oh?"

"She might be human, but she's still Katherine," he said.

Caroline gave a derisive laugh. "One of a kind. Nice taste you've got."

Elijah rolled his glass between his hands, thoughtful. "I could say the same to you."

There was a pause while Caroline decided how to react to that. She settled on a harsh laugh, which echoed strangely in the stillness. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Look," he said, leaning forward in his chair conspiratorially. "I love my brother. But then, I have to. It doesn't mean I trust him. Do you?"

She wasn't sure how to answer. She took a drink from her glass, which burned going down her throat and left a sickly dark aftertaste. "I don't know."

"Let me ask you this, if I may: are you still taking vervain?"

She hadn't thought about that in ages. She remembered worrying, on that day when she came to Klaus for help, that it had been too long since she'd taken it. And from then on she'd forgotten.

"No," she said.

"Because you trust that he won't take advantage of that fact?"

Caroline stared at him, her brow furrowed. "He wouldn't do that."

Elijah seemed like he wanted to disagree, but the hard look in Caroline's eyes convinced him that it wouldn't do any good. He shrugged, saying lightly, "Maybe not."

He leaned back in his chair again. "You know, possibly I'm looking at this all wrong. You might even be a good influence on him."

"Yeah," said Caroline, though she didn't sound so sure.

"Well, anyway," said Elijah, shaking his hand as if waving the conversation away. He raised his glass: "To loving…challenging people."

Caroline smiled, but hesitated on the word 'love'. It was a complicated word. And she couldn't quite get there. Not love, not yet. Trust was part of the deal, it had to be, and she wasn't sure of that. Maybe in time she would be.

But still, she didn't want to quibble, and start a whole discussion up again. She clinked her glass against his.

"So tell me," said Elijah, "what has he been up to?"

Caroline told him, as far as she knew. She told him about the first attack—she still tensed up at the mention of it, but Elijah listened without reaction, which made her feel a little better. She told him about coming back, the meeting with Marcel, and their latest bunch of "recruits", as Klaus called them. It was only at this point that Elijah seemed concerned.

"So…what is his ultimate goal?"

Caroline slumped back in her chair. "Well…I don't know. I'm not sure if he's thought that far."

"That's not like him," said Elijah.

She shrugged. Everything he'd said was just about needing more people. Caroline assumed it was for protection—to have a family to match Marcel's if things ever turned ugly again.

Elijah was quiet for a long time, staring off in to space, thinking. Caroline let her mind wander and glanced over at the clock on the wall. Klaus had been gone for over an hour now. Elijah noticed her glance and said, "What do you think can be keeping him?"

She felt her stomach sink as she looked at the clock again. It was probably nothing—what Elijah had said earlier was just making her paranoid, that was all. It wasn't like Klaus had never gone off on his own before. She was telling herself not to worry, and it was starting to work—but then she remembered something Klaus had said when Elijah first came in, that she'd forgotten about until now. How he'd said why did Elijah have to come _today_, of all days, and Caroline had wondered what was so important about today…and Klaus had turned away, not wanting to meet her eye.

"I think we should go," Caroline announced suddenly, standing up from her chair.

"Go? Where?"

Caroline was searching for her jacket—even in New Orleans, you could begin to feel the chill of fall. "I don't know. I just…we should look for him. I'm not sure exactly where."

Elijah looked at her for some sort of explanation, even as he followed her out the door.

"I've just got a bad feeling," she said.

XXX

The streets were strangely empty for the middle of the day. At least it made looking for Klaus easier. Caroline started with the bar where they had found Lily, another hole in the wall on Chartres Street. But, of course, it was closed. She didn't know what she had expected.

After that, she headed down Royal Street. Elijah followed along behind. He wasn't saying anything, but Caroline could guess the sort of things he was thinking, and it didn't make her feel any better.

They had been walking along Royal for about half an hour when Caroline finally stopped and said, "Okay. I don't know where he is. I don't know where Lily lives…" she trailed off, staring at the sidewalk. "Let's just go back. He's probably there by now."

But Elijah was looking off in a different direction, down an alley that was shadowed in the slanting afternoon sun. Caroline turned to look, too, and saw two figures running towards them.

They were coming up fast, and her first thought was of another attacker, aimed for her—a figure which was becoming all too familiar. She froze. But they came closer and closer and Caroline was about to run when they turned and swept past her without a backwards glance. They had gotten close enough for Caroline to see who they were.

The first one was one of Marcel's boys—Caroline recognized him from the party. The other, chasing behind, was Lily.

"What was—" Elijah started to ask.

Caroline was heading after them. "Come on," she said.

They followed Lily and Marcel's vampire at a distance, down streets that were, like Royal, strangely uncrowded. They took a winding way, as if Marcel's vampire was trying to shake Lily off. He ducked in to alleyways and hopped over fences and doubled back, and Caroline started to wonder if she was wasting her time. Maybe this had nothing to do with Klaus—maybe this was none of her business.

But then another group came hurtling in the same direction. This was bigger, with several of Marcel's clan followed by more vampires that Caroline recognized as Klaus's. She and Elijah ducked out of the way of the bigger group in to the sheltered doorstep of a restaurant, and turned their faces away until they passed.

"You didn't happen to conveniently leave out any details of Klaus's plan, did you?" Elijah asked in an undertone, in case any more vampires were about to start running by.

"You know everything I know," said Caroline shortly.

"Where are they all going?" Elijah wondered aloud, and as if in answer, church bells began to sound from down the street.

Caroline knew that sound, and she knew that place. It was a little church, one that Klaus had pointed out to her, just in passing, attached to some significant piece of history that had passed through her mind without leaving an impression. She remembered it was old-fashioned, with stone arches and heavy wooden doors and torch brackets lining the walls.

The groups passing by had gone, and Caroline gestured to Elijah to follow her.

There was shouting coming from down the street as they grew nearer. It sounded panicked, whoever it was, and out of breath.

Caroline didn't know why, but something told her it would be better not to be seen by anybody. Once she had gotten to the church, she and Elijah stole behind a corner and looked out from the shadows.

Elijah still didn't understand what was happening, and seemed to think that Caroline did. "Are some of these yours?"

Yours, Caroline thought. Ours. It sounded so strange. She nodded.

"The ones being chased or the ones doing the chasing?" Elijah asked in an undertone.

"That second one," said Caroline.

She peered out at the church, the pristine white outside turned orange in the afternoon light. They were all going inside—Marcel's vampires, this is where they had been heading, one group at a time. Caroline thought quickly and figured there must be at least fifty in there. Maybe Marcel included.

She couldn't understand it. Was this just Marcel's newest hideout? It still didn't explain why all Klaus's vampires had suddenly gone rogue and started doing—whatever it was they were doing. But no, this wasn't random. This was planned, this was—

Caroline's inner monologue had to shut up, because Klaus had just stepped in to view.

In the days that followed, Caroline would turn over the events that happened next, asking herself if there was something she should have done, if she should have stepped in to view or torn his hands away from the church doors, or just said something, anything.

But in the moment, she was paralyzed, and this was what she saw:

Klaus, followed by a woman with black hair, holding a spell book in her hands—Inez. The witch's spell casting a white haze which sank into the edges of the church walls and disappeared in to the floor. Klaus, locking all the church doors and circling the building with a can of gasoline. Inez hurrying away, and the emotionless expression Klaus wore as he lit a match and let it fall to the ground. The way the flames climbed up the building like clawed hands, and the way she could hear, even above the screams and cries for help that filled the church, Elijah, who stood behind her, let out a sharp breath as the fire started to grow.

But most of all, she remembered the look of satisfaction on Klaus's face as he turned away from the locked church and the screams and set out in to the shadowy streets again, without once hesitating or looking back.


	11. Smoke

**A/N: Whooo, guys. This is getting so HEAVY. This chapter is full of…un-fluff. Not much to say. The next chapter will be the LAST! Thanks for favorites, follows, blah, you know. **

Caroline couldn't move.

This wasn't happening. It wasn't. It was a trick, or a spell, or a joke. She somehow couldn't make her brain fit the pieces together, and everything was just an echoing blur until she felt Elijah rush past her, saying, "Oh my god…"

He was rushing for the door, trying to force it to open, to make the screaming stop, but it was like it was glued shut, or behind a wall—when he tried to pound his fist against the door, it was as if there was some kind of invisible barrier stopping his hand an inch short.

The flames were rising, and Caroline wanted to yell to him to get out of the way. But when she tried to speak, the voice that came out was barely audible. He finally did step back, as smoke started to hang over them and the church walls radiated heat. Somewhere, far away but getting closer, Caroline heard the sound of sirens.

"We've got to go," said Elijah, hearing it, too.

If Caroline had been herself, she might have argued. But as it was, she followed Elijah as he hurried away. The streets were darker than they had been a few minutes ago, partly from the setting sun, and partly from the cloud of smoke settling over them.

It was so dark that she almost didn't see a figure, huddled over on the sidewalk, covered in soot and shaking.

"Wait," Caroline said, and Elijah stopped. She was almost surprised he had heard her, her voice still sounded so strange and faint to her own ears.

"Hello?" she said. The person looked up, and Caroline recognized him, though he looked smaller and paler than when she'd seen him last. "Jamie? That's your name, isn't it?"

He nodded, his eyes wide.

Elijah knelt down next to him. "What has happened?" he asked.

Jamie glanced back at him, as if unsure whether he should be scared. But Elijah's sage tone must have reassured him, because he said, "It was all so fast…I didn't…I should be dead."

Caroline didn't say anything. He continued, "Klaus told us that he was planning something for today. Some big…attack. We were supposed to round everyone up. I don't even know who they were. But we were supposed to chase them, lead them to the church. He didn't say…he didn't say what would happen next."

The sirens in the distance were getting closer, and the smoke was still billowing from the church. The yells coming from inside had stopped, and it made Caroline sick to think what that had to mean.

"But the others…the others like me," Jamie said, and it was getting harder for him to speak, "They were inside the church, too. There was some kind of…force…once everybody was inside they couldn't get out. The only reason I wasn't trapped was because…I ran when I saw how many there were. I ran."

"You were right to," said Elijah, his voice steady and even. Caroline at once envied and couldn't stand how calm he was.

"The people inside…do you think they're…? They have to be…dead. God, there were so many. There's got to be about a hundred people in there." Jamie looked back at the church. "I didn't know. I never would have…"

"It's all right," Elijah said.

Jamie buried his head in his hands. Caroline wanted to look away, she wanted to be as far away as possible. But it was like nothing in her was working the way it was supposed to—legs, arms, brain, nothing.

When Jamie brought his head up again, his eyes were tinged red. "I thought…when Klaus found me, I thought it was like…a guardian angel—It sounds so stupid now—Saving me from my life…But I was wrong." He looked at Caroline. "That...he's your friend, isn't he?"

Caroline opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't think of any words to string together.

"He's a monster," said Jamie.

Elijah cut in, as if he didn't want the words to sink in. "Jamie, did you see one particular man inside? Who seemed like he was the leader?"

He nodded. "I heard somebody call him Marcel."

Elijah looked up at Caroline, and they both glanced back at the church, the voices inside silenced. They both knew what this meant. "He's dead, then," said Elijah.

It was all happening so fast. So fast and so terribly, terribly familiar. She'd been surrounded before by the bodies of Marcel's family, and now…now there would be no more family to speak of.

Caroline nodded. She could speak again, but when she did her voice was hollow, lifeless.

"Yes," she said. "We've won."

XXX

Somehow, she found her way back to the apartment. Elijah stayed behind, to clean up the mess as best he could. There would be policemen to compel, memories to wipe, corpses to dispose of. It was his specialty—cleaning up the debris that his brother always left behind—and he did it with a kind of weary familiarity.

Klaus wasn't there when she came back. She stood for a long time of the threshold of the empty apartment, feeling the silence over her like a suffocating fog. No—not silence. Somewhere, she could still hear sirens. She sat on the divan and waited. Her face wore a blank expression that only faltered for a second when she caught a glimpse of her painting still up, staring at her from the corner. With it, she remembered pieces of her dreams—dreams of her own face, of Jenna and Stefan and Mrs. Lockwood, all asking, "_Have you forgotten?_" It had been a warning, she realized now, too late. She looked away from the painting fast, and didn't stir again.

It felt like she had drifted in to a kind of trance, where she had stopped noticing the time. Or maybe it did happen that fast. But before long, she heard Klaus's key turn in the lock, heard him step inside. Caroline stared straight ahead, not wanting to look at him.

"Love, I'm so glad you're here. Where's Elijah?"

She didn't answer.

"Something's happened. You might not believe it when I tell you, but I think you'll be—" he had been crossing the room, but stopped when he saw her face. "—glad. Caroline, what is it?"

She turned her head, slowly, to finally look at him. She had sort of wished—and it was a stupid wish—that he might look…different. There might be a strange look in his eyes or a haze around him, or, who knows, a dark magic symbol tattooed on his face. Something that might indicate that there was something wrong with him—something that could be fixed. But there wasn't.

"Glad?" she asked quietly. "Is that what you said?"

He seemed taken aback. "So…you've heard about what happened?"

"Yeah," said Caroline, and again her voice sounded harsh and strange and not like her own at all. "I heard."

Klaus sat next to her, taking hold of her hands. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I wish you could have been there, but I didn't want you getting hurt, and I knew if I told you you'd insist on coming…"

Caroline just looked at him, feeling the light pressure of his hands, wishing he'd take them away.

"But, look…it's over now. No more looking over your shoulder, no more hiding. And you and I…"—he squeezed her hands tightly—"we can _rule_."

She had been stoic up till now, but it was all starting to settle in. She hadn't been mistaken. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.

"Caroline?" he was watching her expression, puzzled. "I thought you'd be pleased."

"Why?" she finally managed to get out, and she wasn't sure at first which 'why' it was she was asking. "Why would you think that?"

His face fell. "Caroline—"

"Pleased? You think I would be happy about this? All this time, you've been planning this…even when we were…god, I feel like I'm going to be sick…"

Klaus took his hands away. "I realize it's not exactly pretty. But it's what had to be done. You understand that, don't you?"

She shook her head, feeling her throat tighten as if there was a hand around it. "No…no, I don't understand. This…this didn't need to happen. I didn't want this."

"Caroline…" said Klaus, with an air of having to patiently explain something, "I saw an opportunity and I took it. I had to. After all…how did you think this would end? Both Marcel and I couldn't win, and this way I could be sure that you wouldn't be caught in the crossfire. Love," he said, "I did this for you."

She stood up, backed away from the divan. "For me?" she said, and she could barely get the words out.

She'd wanted to get away from him, but he stood up and followed her and grasped her by the arms. "Caroline, just try to calm down, please? I'm sorry this came as such a shock, but in time you'll see that it was necessary."

"I never wanted this," she said again, as if that could take it back. "I never wanted to _rule_, I never wanted to hurt anybody…"

"Caroline—"

She was shaking under his hands, grasping on to him even though her instincts told her to turn and run. "No, no, no…" she was repeating. "You…you've made a murderer out of me, just like before…"

"Just like before?" he asked quietly.

"I told you how guilty I felt, I told you. And I thought you understood." Suddenly, she found that she was becoming choked by tears. Klaus tried to draw her closer, run a hand through her hair, but she pushed him back, saying, "Don't touch me."

He stepped back, letting her hunch over as sobs racked her body.

"So, that's still what you think," said Klaus, his voice forcibly even and controlled. "That you're innocent in this, and it's all my fault, that I'm evil and a killer and I can't tell right from wrong."

Caroline didn't say anything, or couldn't.

"Well, you know what? You're _right_. I am all those things. I don't care about anything or anyone except you, and I've never led you to believe otherwise. You came back here knowing full well about all of that, and still you stayed. What does that say about you?"

"I just thought…" she started to say, but she didn't know what the end of that sentence was. Finally she said, though she hated the way it sounded, "I thought you could be different. You love me, don't you?"

She'd thought that might make him lose his resolve, but instead he raised his voice so that it echoed through the room. "Oh, that's right, and anybody who can love can also be saved, isn't that what you said? Well, maybe I don't want to be saved!"

Caroline looked at him, stunned in to silence, at least for a moment.

"Or hadn't that occurred to you?"

In that moment, like so many moments in their past, she wished she were stronger, or he was weaker. That his invulnerability would melt away for a moment and she could hurt him, really hurt him. But then again—there was a way she could.

"So you'd rather make me a monster like you," she said coldly.

Klaus stepped back, staggered as if he'd been physically hit. It gave Caroline a tiny moment of satisfaction, but then it ended. A few minutes ago she wouldn't have thought it possible to feel any worse, but she felt worse now.

It was then—suddenly, stupidly, inexplicably—that she wondered if maybe she did love him, after all. Even now, even in spite of everything, she felt the hurt as if it were her own, and she wanted to take it back, wanted to comfort him, wanted to hide away in his world and forget everything else.

But things didn't work that way. Reality comes creeping in, as today had so brutally taught her. She had to remember who she was.

A tense silence stretched between them, and Klaus finally tried to break it. "Caroline—" he said, as he stepped towards her again.

But she pulled back, feeling like the room was spinning.

"Leave me alone," she said, and looked away from him as she headed for one of the empty spare rooms—the farthest from his room she could find.

On her way, though she had been trying to ignore it, her glance landed on the painting in the corner. It stood, lovely and perfect, and Caroline had the sudden urge to rip it off of its frame and tear it to pieces. She reached out her arm towards it, her fingertips almost brushing the grainy surface of her blue dress…but no. She drew it back again.

Eyes down to the ground, she left the room.


	12. Souvenirs

**A/N: Final chapter! This is going to sound really cryptic and unhelpful, but this chapter is better if you remember the stuff that happened in chapter 4, especially the end of chapter 4. That's all I'm gonna say. Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me through this story. It's been fun. One final thank you for favorites, follows, and reviews. Hope you guys like it! **

"Do you think she'll come out at all today?"

"I don't know. It's almost better when she doesn't. I can't stand seeing her like this. It's like she's…gone. Dead. I don't know, Elijah…"

"She's in shock. It will pass, you'll see."

"Yes, but if she doesn't…"

Caroline could hear the two of them talking through the door, as she could every day. She ignored them. They always talked about her, and they always said the same things.

It had been a week since everything. Caroline had stayed in one of the spare rooms, avoiding Klaus and Elijah and the world as much as possible. It was easier. She knew sooner or later she'd have to leave. Hell, her freshman orientation was in a few days, a knowledge that she'd kept in the back of her mind all summer. Her mother and Elena had tried to call and ask where she was, but Caroline still wasn't answering. Sometimes these days the sun set and she realized she hadn't said a single word all day.

It didn't make her feel sad, any of this. It didn't make her feel anything.

"Do you want her to stay?"

"Of course I do. I always do. But not like this. It's like she's not Caroline anymore."

She turned away, tuned them out, her face empty of expression. Let them talk—what did it matter?

In the next room, Klaus was pacing back and forth with a kind of mechanical monotony, Elijah standing by, a glass clutched in his hand.

"She's a unique girl," said Elijah pensively, his eyes fixed on the reflections shifting off of his glass. "You know, she told me before that she'd stopped taking vervain. She has a trusting nature."

"If you're trying to twist the knife, Elijah, you know it won't work with me. I'm not one for guilt."

"So, you don't regret what happened?"

Klaus glanced involuntarily over at the painting in the corner, wondering why he didn't just put the damn thing away. "I regret…that I didn't realize how it would affect Caroline. But it worked, didn't it? Marcel is finished, and I'm the king again."

"Yes," said Elijah. "And how does it feel to be king?"

Klaus didn't feel the need to answer that question.

XXX

For Caroline, the days ran on and blended together and skipped. But still there was that nagging deadline of a day in the back of her mind, and her phone was ringing more and more often, with messages that were growing more and more frantic: _Care, where are you? It's move in in just a few days and I still haven't heard from you…are you still coming? _

On a day like the others, in which she was listening to Klaus and Elijah talk on the other side of the door, Caroline suddenly stepped out and stood in front of them. Her sudden presence was enough to make them fall silent.

"I've decided to leave," she said. Her face was blank, her tone matter-of-fact. "There's a flight tomorrow afternoon, at five o'clock."

The two of them looked at each other for a minute, wondering what they were supposed to say.

"Caroline, you don't have to—" Klaus started, but she wouldn't let him finish. She wasn't even cold to him—that would have been better, would have meant that she was feeling _something._ But she was just…not there.

"I have to leave," she said. "This isn't a discussion. I just wanted to let you know."

And she walked out again.

XXX

She spent the rest of the day packing, while life on the other side of the door was strangely quiet. Elijah had gone out, leaving Klaus alone with his thoughts. Caroline would occasionally step outside to get something from another room, and when she passed by Klaus he would often be sitting with his sketchbook open to a blank page, charcoal poised over the paper but never settling, as if he had forgotten what he was about to do.

The next morning was bright and clear, and she woke up slowly, wondering how she would fill the hours before her plane would arrive. She'd finished packing last night, having brought an uncharacteristically small number of things with her. For a while she just lay there, thinking about nothing in particular.

Around noon there came a tentative knock on her door.

It was Klaus, who opened the door before she had a chance to respond, maybe thinking that she wouldn't. His gaze drifted over the packed suitcase and the bare dresser against the wall.

"So, you're packed, then."

Caroline, who sat upright as he came in, gave a slight shrug, but didn't say anything.

Klaus started to say something, something that probably would have been more meaningful than what he finally landed on, which was, "I thought you might like a ride to the airport."

"No, thank you," she said. "I'll just take a cab."

Another pause. Klaus stayed where he was, his hand on the doorknob.

"I wish you'd just be angry with me," he said quietly.

"I'm not," said Caroline.

"Then I wish you'd stay." He knelt down beside her, and with a kind of sudden desperation, took her hands. "Please, Caroline, just stay with me."

She looked down at their hands entwined on her lap. "I can't," she said. Like everything else she said nowadays, it wasn't harsh, or spiteful, or cold. It just was.

She kept her eyes down, not wanting to see the look on his face, so she was surprised when, after a moment's pause, he let out a harsh laugh.

"I can't remember the last time I begged—actually begged—for something," he said, and his voice was low, as if he was fighting to keep it steady. "It really does make you in to an idiot, doesn't it?—Love?"

"I should…" Caroline said, turning away.

"Wait—" he said. He kept hold of her hand. "You're finished packing. You still have a few hours before you have to leave, don't you?"

"Yes, but—"

"There's one more place I never got to show you. You can't leave New Orleans without seeing it."

"I don't think that's such a good idea," she said. A part of her threatened to feel something again when she thought about all the places he had taken her, all the things he had wanted to share with her. She closed her eyes, and the threat had passed. Numb again.

"It won't take long, I promise."

"Klaus..."

"You're leaving. I understand. I won't try to change that. Just…let me show you this," he said. "And then it's straight to the airport."

She sighed, checked the time, and looked back at him.

XXX

City Park was crowded this time of day, full of people soaking up the last days of summer. Tourists hung around the sculpture garden but Klaus, typically, liked the oldest part of the park, full of huge oak trees that stretched over the sweeping lawn like hands, ready to reach out and grab whoever passed by. A little further along there was a piece of the old bayou, where old stone bridges from the early days of New Orleans remained and the trees trailed their leaves in the still water.

Caroline hadn't said a single thing all the way there or when they arrived. She only seemed dimly aware of what was happening. Her mind was somewhere else.

Klaus stopped them in the middle of one of the stone bridges to look out over the water.

"Now tell me this isn't better than anything they have in Mystic Falls," he said.

She didn't say anything.

After the silence had lasted for a few long moments, Klaus said, "I don't know how to talk to you when you're not insulting me. Caroline, just say _something_, for god's sake."

"It is pretty," she said finally, but there was no feeling behind it.

He didn't seem entirely happy with that answer, and leaned against the stone wall with an aggravated sigh. "You know," he said, after a pause, "I wanted to show you this place your first day here. I'd thought with the atmosphere and the night air and…I don't know, this city's allure…you might warm up to me." Thoughtfully, he pulled something out of his pocket. It was a silver necklace with a fleur-de-lis charm on it. He let it dangle over the water, glinting in the sunlight. "…And then I was going to give you this, even though you would have said I was trying to buy your affection again, and hadn't I learned by now…"

He held it out to her. "Don't suppose you'd accept it as a going-away present?"

Caroline shook her head. "No, I don't think so."

"I'm certainly not trying to buy your affection now, am I?" he said, the beginnings of a sharp edge in his voice. "Just something to remember this summer by."

"I'll remember it just fine," she said mildly. But Klaus noticed that she shivered a little and her hands clenched as she said it.

He decided not to mention it, and asked, "So, what are you going to do now?"

She looked down at the water, answering slowly. "See my friends. College. The whole life thing." She thought about it for a while, then added, "I'll try, at least."

Klaus's brow furrowed, but he didn't know what to say. They were quiet for a little while longer, looking out over the water.

Eventually Caroline checked the time on her phone and said, "I have to go."

Klaus nodded in a resigned sort of way. But before she could step away from the edge of the bridge, he took her hand and pressed the necklace in to it.

"I still don't want this," she said.

"You can throw it away when you get home. All right?"

He stayed where he was and didn't move until, with a sigh, she closed her hand around the chain.

XXX

It was a quiet drive to the airport, as Caroline still didn't feel much like talking and Klaus had nothing more to say.

When they got to the doors, Caroline told him that he didn't have to come inside with her, but he did anyway. She also told him not to wait with her until it was time to board, but he did that, too.

"You know, you can't come with me past the security gate," she told him.

"Of course. You know I'm not one to break rules," he said, with a wry smile.

Despite his sarcastic tone, they waited on a bench just before security. The airport had a high glass ceiling, letting in the bright afternoon light, making it almost difficult to see. Caroline sat with a bland expression on her face, her hands folded on her lap.

In the midst of the silence, Klaus began to speak, as if he were thinking out loud.

"I've been thinking about that first day you came, at the beginning of the summer? When I made you stay with that stupid blackmailing scheme of mine. So childish, I know. That always seems to be my problem, doesn't it? I make rash decisions. I don't think about the consequences my actions might have for me, much less for anybody else. I hope you realize that I was bluffing about killing random people on the streets. I mean, my god, the mess."

She didn't say anything. He kept going, staring off in to the crowd.

"I just had to do something to keep you here. And then when you returned—if we're being perfectly honest, Caroline, I didn't really care _why_ you'd come once I knew. I was just glad to have you here. That makes me selfish, I'm sure. It's just that…it's been so long since before I knew what killing felt like. I think I'd forgotten how horrible it can be. How it can change you. It certainly changed me, and not for the better."

He turned to her now. "And I don't want you to change that way, love. I wasn't lying when I said your humanity was your strongest suit. You've got to hold on to that for as long as you can."

She still didn't say anything.

"I feel like I'm talking to a shell. Can you understand me, Caroline?"

"I understand you," she said, but it was with a hollow tone which proved that she didn't. "I don't know why you're telling me all this."

"I'm not sure, either," he said. "I just…I know you won't be happy. You're not happy now. You haven't been since before all of this started, and maybe it would just be better—"

She turned to him, finally. "What's the point in talking about it now? I know you want me to stay—"

But she was interrupted by an announcement over the speakers, saying that flight 5407 to Roanoke, Virginia was now boarding.

"That's me," Caroline said, standing up. She started to walk away, but Klaus caught her by the hand before she could get far.

"Wait," he said. He brought her closer, his hands framing her face. He glanced over, beyond the security gate, and then his eyes settled back on her. He seemed to have decided something. "I just want you to be happy."

"I'm going to be late," said Caroline, or at least she started to. She fell silent and froze when Klaus looked in to her eyes.

"I want you to be happy…and that's why you won't remember any of it."

"Listen carefully. When you step off the plane back to Mystic Falls, this is what you will know to be true: You came to New Orleans at the beginning of the summer. I cured you. You left. That is all. When you left home again, it was to spend the rest of your vacation in Mexico, just as you told all your friends you had. The plane you're about to get on will take you from Mexico City to Virginia. Do you understand?"

In a trance, she nodded.

"You spent a summer on the beach, watching the sunsets and the waves crashing and thinking about how your life is just beginning and all the time you have…to do and see whatever you want." He stopped, feeling his voice start to fail him. But he pressed on, "You had a lovely time, though you missed your friends. You're glad to be getting back to them. You're glad to be starting college."

He brushed a piece of her hair away from her eyes. "Is all that clear?"

Again, she nodded.

The announcement over the speakers repeated, which seemed to bring her back to her senses.

"Would you let me go?" she said, suddenly aware of his hands on her. "I have to get on."

He stepped back. "Go on, then," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

By way of goodbye, she only nodded, and then turned and walked through the gate. When she was through she turned back to look at Klaus, sensing that something strange had just happened. But he was already gone.

XXX

Klaus's apartment took the worst punishment that day.

It was the emptiness, the silence that he couldn't stand when he got back home. It settled all around him, an unwelcome reminder of things lost. So he smashed a bottle of bourbon on the ground. And when that didn't last he turned over tables and broke chair legs and was on the point of ripping the wallpaper off the walls when Elijah came home.

He looked around the place, forever unsurprised by Klaus's behavior, and said, "Well, at least you left the chandelier."

Elijah sat down amid the debris, and soon Klaus found himself telling him—with a few pauses in which he shattered a lamp and two bottles of wine—exactly what had happened.

When he had finished, Elijah was smiling in a way that made Klaus want to give up on the room and break _him _instead.

"What are you so _pleased_ about? Do you really hate me so much?" he asked. "You like seeing me in pain?"

Elijah shook his head, the same gentle smile on his face. "Only slightly," he said. "I was just thinking that there may be hope for you yet, brother."

"Oh, god, not that again."

"Something was different with her, I'm sure of it."

Klaus glanced over at the painting in the corner—one of the few things in the apartment he'd left untouched.

For a few long moments, he was at a loss for words. Finally, as he took the portrait off of its mount—to lock it away somewhere, somewhere safe—he said,

"Maybe so."

XXX

It was funny. For Caroline, summer had just flown by, and it all sort of felt like a blur.

Maybe it was just that summer-before-college feeling. When something so big and life-changing is coming, it's hard to focus on the here and now. All she remembered was the sun and the sea and looking forward to everything that was coming.

She was thinking this as she emptied her suitcase on to her bed, wondering how she could have left back-to-school shopping so late, and how she'd have to call Elena—god, it had been _forever_ since she'd talked to Elena—and make sure their bedspreads were color-coordinated.

Among the pile of unfolded clothes hitting her bed, a silver glimmer caught her eye. Caroline couldn't remember what it could be, and rooted around in the pile until she found it again. It was a silver necklace with a fleur-de-lis charm.

She picked it up and held it against the light, and in that moment, she had a kind of déjà vu. It was strange. She didn't know what she remembered, exactly. It was more a feeling. Like being at the top of a rollercoaster…

And it was gone again. She shook her head, coming back to the present. She didn't know where the necklace had come from, but she hung it from the notch over her window, and for some reason, felt like smiling as she watched it swing back and forth, throwing sunlight across the room.


End file.
